ASCO and the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) have released updated standards for its Oncology Medical Home (OMH) certification program, which were initially codified and published in 2021.1 The 2021 systematic literature review focused on the topics of OMH model of care, clinical pathways, and survivorship care plans.2 Among the 2025 updates are new standards that address “just culture” and safety in oncology, multidisciplinary team management, and geriatric assessment.
“The OMH is a system for care delivery and, in my mind, a playbook for best practices,” said Expert Panel Co-Chair Kim Woofter, RN, former Executive Director of AC3, South Bend, Indiana. “These standards provide a systematic approach to the care of our patients that will ultimately get those patients the best end result.”
OMH History
Without knowing a bit about its history, one cannot really understand the purpose of OMH, said Expert Panel Co-Chair John V. Cox, DO, MBA, FACP, FASCO, of UT Southwestern Medical Center.
“The origins of a ‘medical home’ are in the pediatric literature 30 to 35 years ago, where it was recognized that pediatric patients with complex medical conditions, including cancer, needed a bridge as they transitioned into the adult health care community,” Dr. Cox said. “It was recognized that there were gaps in that transition.”
Kim Woofter, RN
John V. Cox, DO, MBA, FACP, FASCO
Efforts were made to define the critical elements of care delivery for these patients. That eventually grew into a model of primary care and the primary care medical home.
“In the early 2000s, a group of innovative oncologists began to adapt this model for patients with cancer, recognizing that medical oncology is often the ‘primary care provider’ and coordinator for oncology care,” Dr. Cox said. “In the past 25 years, with specialization only increasing within oncology, the need for that coordinating force is greater than ever.”
Pillars of Care
The OMH standards outline the key pillars necessary for the delivery of quality cancer care. The 2021 standards have pillars for patient engagement, availability and access to care, evidence-based medicine, equitable and comprehensive team-based care, quality improvement, goals of care, palliative and end-of-life care discussions, and chemotherapy safety.2 These standards are the basis for the quality program ASCO Certified, which has been piloted by 12 U.S. oncology practices.3,4
“Truthfully, most practices already had a lot of these things in place, but nobody had it 100% perfect,” Ms. Woofter said. “In the 12 pilot practices, we helped them to demonstrate and document what they were already doing and gave them a more formal ‘playbook’ to put the rest of these standards in place.”
However, Ms. Woofter emphasized that being ASCO Certified is not just checking a box; it is committing to ongoing quality improvement.
Dr. Cox agreed. “The practice of oncology today is nothing like 10 years ago, and practice in 5 to 10 years will be different as well. We must have a model that evolves over time,” he said.
Evolving Standards
The framework of the originally published standards remains solid, Ms. Woofter said, with a few changes in this update. “We needed to make a couple of additions and provide clarity on some of the existing standards,” she added.
One of the changes focuses on patients’ safety. “Our prior standards emphasized a regimen of safety and reporting in the chemotherapy infusion suite,” Dr. Cox said. “We broadened that requirement to include safety, reporting, and awareness to the entire practice.”
Specifically, the standard calls for OMH practices to adopt policies that embrace a culture of safety, including training, reporting, measures, and analysis/feedback processes, as well as, importantly, an open, accountable, and blameless “just culture” that recognizes that errors are often rooted in a practice’s systemic factors.1
The 2021 standards also emphasized the use of evidence-based care and implementation of formal clinical pathways, the language about which was clarified with the 2025 update.
“The update makes clear that this standard does not require the purchase of a commercially available program,” Dr. Cox said. “Through the pilot programs, we became aware that practices were meeting this standard using technologies that they already had in place.”
The 2025 update also addresses the growing evidence and ASCO guideline supporting the importance of geriatric assessments, Ms. Woofter said. With the updated standards, an OMH will have a process for conducting geriatric assessments, using a validated tool, to check for impairments and vulnerabilities prior to treatment initiation.1
Adopting OMH Standards in Practice
For practices looking to adopt the OMH standards, Ms. Woofter noted that the first step is often to look at the standards and determine where the practice currently stands. “Ask yourself, ‘Where do we stand? Where can we build?’” Ms. Woofter said. Implementation does not have to occur all at once; a few standards can be done at a time, and ASCO’s care delivery team can help, she said.
“These goals aren’t lofty—they are realistic,” Ms. Woofter remarked. Although implementation takes time, effort, and money, she said, “the truth is…many practices are likely already doing [them] in one form or another because they are the right things to do. This is absolutely achievable.”
REFERENCES
1. Woofter K, Kennedy EB, Adelson, K, et al: Oncology Medical Homes: ASCO-Community Oncology Alliance standards. JCO Oncol Pract. July 21, 2025 (early release online).
2. Woofter K, Kennedy EB, et al: Oncology Medical Home: ASCO and COA standards. JCO Oncol Pract 17:475-492, 2021.
3. ASCO: Cancer care standards. Available at https://www.asco.org/practice-patients/cancer-care-standards. Accessed July 22, 2025.
4. ASCO: ASCO Certified: Patient-centered cancer care standards. Available at https://www.asco.org/practice-patients/quality-improvement/quality-programs/asco-certified-patient-centered-cancer-care. Accessed July 22, 2025.
Originally published in ASCO Daily News. © American Society of Clinical Oncology. ASCO Daily News, July 21, 2025. All rights reserved.
