Process.

Radiation oncology-specific accreditation is an important way to improve a program’s quality by inviting external assessment of its operations. There are three main RO-specific accreditations: ACR, ACRO, and APEx. The latter was established by ASTRO in 2014, and this report describes initial outcomes of the APEx program since its formation. One of the main purposes of accreditation is to identify areas of improvement that might be visible from within an organization. A frequent deficiency is consistent documentation of essential parts of the initial patient evaluation--such as prior radiation therapy or pregnancy status. In addition, fewer than a quarter of all RO programs have comprehensive standard operating procedures (SOPs) for all their treatment procedures. What stood out most, though, was that most programs receiving full accreditation had a full team engaged in the process while most programs with provisional accreditation had a single staff-member involved in the process. TBL: Radiation oncology accreditation is a team approach to improving the quality of care at your center. | Hong, Pract Radiat Oncol 2020