More Than 200 Practices Now QOPI® Certified for Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care

ASCO and its affiliate, the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Certification Program (QCP™), have announced that more than 200 practices have received certification. Since its start in 2010, the QOPI Certification Program has evaluated individual outpatient oncology practice performance in areas that affect patient care and safety. Certified outpatient oncology practices/institutions meet the highest national standards in quality and safety for cancer care delivery.

“QOPI’s growth over the past 3 years is remarkable with a doubling of QOPI-certified practices across the country in less than 2 years,” said ASCO President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP. “Through their certification, these practices have shown a commitment to providing treatment that meets the highest national standards and to continuous improvement. This is a testament to our ASCO members’ focus on quality.”

QOPI Certification Program

The QOPI Certification Program, launched in 2010, builds on ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative by assessing the practice’s compliance with certification standards based on the ASCO/Oncology Nursing Society Standards for Safe Chemotherapy Administration. To become certified, practices must attain a benchmark quality score on certification measures in QOPI and attest that they comply with 20 QCP standards. Practices that participate receive detailed reports that indicate their performance on over 160 quality metrics including key certification quality measures as well as a structured onsite review which offers insights into specific areas for improvement. The QCP addresses the call from the Institute of Medicine to close the quality gap by aligning evidence-based guidelines and consensus-driven standards with requirements for oncology practices to develop and maintain structural safety components (ie, policy and procedures that ensure a practice’s performance). 

More than 200 practices have earned the QCP seal, a way for cancer centers to demonstrate commitment to high-quality patient care.

The first step towards achieving QOPI certification is participation in QOPI data collection. Practices and institutions must then undergo an extensive review by a team of ASCO professionals and oncology physicians and nurses at least once every 3 years.

For a list of certified practices, please visit http://qopi.asco.org/certifiedpractices.htm. ■