The Marion L. Shepard Cancer Center has earned recognition for its high-quality cancer care.

The cancer center at Vidant Beaufort Hospital in Washington was granted accreditation from the Commission on Cancer, a program of the American College of Surgeons.

“This is a significant achievement for our cancer center,” said oncologist Dr. John Inzerillo. “It puts us on the level of any major medical center.”

Earning the accreditation started nearly three years ago, when practice manager Camille Jones came aboard at the Shepard Cancer Center.

“Camille took job in 2017 and made it her priority,” said Pam Shadle, Vidant Beaufort’s director of marketing, community outreach and development. “We had to have one year’s data to meet the standards.”

Data was collected in 2018 and the process of earning the accreditation began in 2019. There are 22 standards required — some consisting of further lists of standards — all of which are dedicated to determining the quality of care a facility gives their patients from first diagnosis to survivorship plans. Following the collection of data, a surveyor is sent to study, in person, a facility’s practices, from prevention programs to rehabilitation.

“It’s like a deep dive into everything we do,” Jones said.

What the cancer care committee realized in the accreditation process is that a community consisting of surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, physical therapists, nutritionists, speech therapists and more, must work together seamlessly to find the “best way to get the patient from point A to point B,” Shadle said.

“There’s a minimum standard that you have to meet to be approved. This is not a ‘rubber stamp,’” Inzerillo said. “No one can independently do this. It takes all the departments.”

Quality care, in this sense, means many moving pieces, starting with making sure those newly diagnosed with cancer neither have to wait weeks to meet with their provider nor do they have to navigate the process on their own —  the cancer center provides a navigator to help patients when needed, from understanding insurance to transportation to treatments, as well as when further assistance is needed from the Shepard Cancer Foundation.

“Our goal is to have all our patients in to see a provider in five days or less, which is significant for our patients — not having to wait after they’ve gotten that diagnosis,” said Rebecca Simmons, Shepard Cancer Center’s nursing supervisor.

That quality of care is further extended to options and information: the cancer center facilitates clinical trials and studies that patients can opt into, and each patient has access to their history.

“To be such a small center we have a robust (clinical trials) program,” Jones said. “We currently have 15 patients on studies and 24 open studies available to our patients, and we’re in the process of four additional studies. That’s something that a lot of people don’t realize we have available right here in Washington.”

“We provide the patient with documents that talk about their whole history, all the history (of medical care) they’ve gotten — chemotherapy, radiation, therapy. That way if they ever go to another facility not in the Vidant system, they can present it,” Simmons said.

The three-year accreditation was also recently awarded to the Academic Comprehensive Cancer Program at Vidant Medical Center and The Outer Banks Hospital. For the staff of the Marion L. Shepard Cancer Center, the recognition is a huge achievement, one representative of departments coming together to work toward a common goal.

“The collaboration with others is so important: access to care, prevention and clinical trials — all of that combined really benefits our community as a whole,” Shadle said. “It solidifies that we’re doing the best for our patients.”