For the first time, cancer care quality measures for Pennsylvania hospitals accredited by the American College of Surgeons' Commission on Cancer are publicly available.

The quality measures were released this week by the Pennsylvania Health Care Quality Alliance on its website,

www.pahealthcarequality.org. This is the first such release in the country.As part of a statewide transparency initiative, PHCQA teamed up with the American College of Surgeons to provide CoC-accredited hospitals in Pennsylvania with the opportunity to report cancer measures endorsed by the National Quality Forum and to recognize facilities that achieved CoC-accreditation."Pennsylvania has a long history of leading the way in terms of transparency of health care data," said Erik Muther, executive director of the alliance. "Sharing cancer care metrics allows members of the public to see which hospitals are providing high-quality cancer care, which supports informed decision-making."The cancer data includes three breast and two colon cancer measures. Breast and colon cancers were chosen in part because of their prevalence.Muther noted that according to a Health Information National Trends Survey study in 2008, nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population has searched for cancer information at some point, and that the Internet is the most frequently used source of cancer information."More transparency will be necessary in order to move our health care system to be more 'value', rather than 'volume' oriented. Using a multi-stakeholder approach from start to finish increases the likelihood that information will be viewed as reliable and trustworthy," Muther said.