As Arroyo Grande Community Hospital (AGCH) gets set to open its new Coastal Cancer Care and Diagnostic Center in June 2008, the hospital and its Cancer Committee is honored to announce that local Oncologist, David Palchak, M.D., recently received a three-year appointment from the American College of Surgeons’ (ACoS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) to act as Cancer Liaison Physician for the hospital’s cancer program. Cancer Liaison physicians are an integral part of cancer programs accredited by the CoC.
Dr. Palchak is among a national network of over 1,600 volunteer physicians who are responsible for providing leadership and direction to establish, maintain, and support their facilities’ cancer program. Dr. Palchak, who has significant interest in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with malignant diseases, is a member of the multi-disciplinary cancer committee at AGCH, an institution which is dedicated to facilitating the delivery of comprehensive quality cancer care.
Dr. Edwin Hayashi, AGCH Cancer Campaign Chairman states; “We're proud of David's appointment to the American College of Surgeons' Committee on Cancer. We appreciate his dedication and his efforts to improve care in our community. It takes a lot of work to obtain a center of excellence designation from the ACoS and his efforts as liaison will help all physicians in our community work with the ACoS to ensure that we meet or exceed national standards of excellence for cancer care."
The Commission on Cancer is a consortium of professional organizations dedicated to improving survival and quality of life for cancer patients through standard-setting, prevention, research, education, and the monitoring of comprehensive quality care.
Established by the American College of Surgeons in 1922, the multidisciplinary Commission on Cancer establishes standards to ensure quality, multi-disciplinary, and comprehensive cancer care delivery in health care settings; conducts surveys in health care settings to assess compliance with those standards; collects standardized data from CoC-approved health care settings to measure cancer care quality; uses data to monitor treatment patterns and outcomes and enhance cancer control and clinical surveillance activities, and develops effective educational interventions to improve cancer prevention, early detection, cancer care delivery, and outcomes in health care settings.
For more information about Dr. Palchak’s appointment with the Commission on Cancer and the Arroyo Grande Community Hospital Coastal Cancer Care and Diagnostic Center, please contact Anna Scott, AGCH Media Relations and Communications Manager at (805) 473-7695 or e-mail Anna.Scott@chw.edu.
