Accreditation and Designation User Manual - OECI

The keyword in the designation of European cancer institutes is the level of comprehensiveness of both professional
infrastructure and performance. The philosophy behind comprehensiveness is:
“If all relevant competences, skills, resources and tools concerning cancer care and research are brought together
and integrated, it will lead to an outcome that is larger, on the whole, than the sum of its parts” (Ringborg, 2008).
Comprehensiveness, in that sense, can be seen as the new basic principle on how cancer activities institutionally
should be organised.
Four different types of cancer institutes/organisations will be distinguished: Cancer Unit, (Specialised) Clinical
Cancer Centre, Cancer Research Centre and Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC). The definition of each category
is given in Table 1. The type of cancer organisation indicates the comprehensiveness of the services and the
degree of specialisation.
The objective of designation
A designation system in combination with an exclusive OECI accreditation programme for each designation type
of cancer centre will create platforms in which synchronization and benchmarking of cancer institutes will be
possible on a European scale.
Definitions of the designation categories are:
− Cancer Units are defined as clinical facilities or hospital departments covering at least radiotherapy and medical
or surgical oncology. Additionally they have a formalized collaboration with other hospital specialties.
− The ‘Clinical Cancer Centre’ is characterised by the clinical capacity covering a sufficient degree of all medical,
surgical and radiotherapy services and occasionally a limited degree of clinical research.
− The ‘Cancer Research Centre’, is characterised by the capacity in cancer research focusing on one or more
areas in the field of fundamental and translational oncology.
− The ‘Comprehensive Cancer Centre’ (CCC) is probably the hardest category to define as many different
interpretations on a CCC already exist. Based on available information and many definitions on the concept of
a CCC, the following features are considered to be essential for this particular category:
• A highly innovative character and multidisciplinary approach using the potential of basic, translational and
clinical research and clinical facilities and activities, organised in a sufficiently identifiable entity,
• A direct provision of an extensive variety of
cancer care tailored to the individual patient’s
needs and directed towards learning and
improving the professional, organisational and
relational quality of care,
• Broad activities in the area of prevention,
education, and external dissemination
of knowledge and innovation. In order to
accentuate the differences with other cancer
centres, a CCC separates itself in the following
points:
• High level of infrastructure, expertise
and innovation in the field of oncology
research,
• Maintenance of an extensive network
including all aspects of oncology treatment
and research,
• Related to an academic/university centre or
is an academic centre.
Glossary
Both questionnaires contain a glossary (doc
42). The intention of the glossary is to provide
the user with the meaning of unclear or unknown
words; for understanding and interpretation of the
questions.
Owner: OECI Organisation of European Cancer Institutes
Status: Revised - 24 th January 2011 - A&D Working Group
Approved by: OECI Accreditation and Designation Board
Chapter 1 Introduction of the OECI A&D Programme
Page 1 of 2
Version 16 February 2011