ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The number of international practices certified in delivering high-quality cancer care based on rigorous standards established by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is increasing. The Medisprof Cancer Center in Romania joins six other practices in Brazil, Greece, and Spain in achieving ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Certification.

“QOPI® Certification exemplifies a practice’s commitment to delivering high-quality cancer care to its patients,” said QOPI Certification Program Steering Group Chair Robert D. Siegel, MD, FACP. “A practice that voluntarily invests the time and resources it takes to earn the QOPI Certification designation has demonstrated a real commitment to providing high-quality cancer care in its community.”

Medisprof Cancer Center, located in Cluj, Romania, is an outpatient hematology-oncology practice. The center completed the voluntary quality assessment survey at their practice earlier this year, achieved ASCO’s standards for quality cancer care delivery, and earned its QOPI® certification, which will remain in effect for three years.

“In a country where there is no quality control for medical services, we are the first to have QOPI Certification for our oncology services,” said Medisprof Cancer Center Medical Director Anghel Adrian Udrea, MD. “We hope this will set a precedent for other practices in Romania to follow.”

QOPI® is a voluntary self-assessment program that helps oncology practices to assess and improve the quality of the care they provide to patients. More than 750 oncology practices have registered for QOPI, including the international practices from the four countries identified above.

The QOPI® Certification Program, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASCO that began in 2010, recognizes the delivery of high-quality care to patients in outpatient hematology-oncology practices. The QOPI® Certification Standards serve as the framework for the program and as a guide to the best practices in oncology care. Individual practices are eligible to receive QOPI® Certification based on their compliance with QOPI standards as assessed during an on-site survey. The QOPI quality standards address practice performance in several key areas, including:

• Creating a safe environment – staffing, competencies, and general policy
• Treatment planning, patient consent, and education
• Ordering, preparing, dispensing, and administering chemotherapy
• Monitoring after chemotherapy is given, including adherence, toxicity, and complications.

More than 300 practices worldwide have current QOPI® Certification.

“Medisprof Cancer Center has invested a great deal of time in achieving QOPI Certification and taken concrete actions to show their commitment to delivering high-quality care to patients with cancer,” said International Quality Task Force Chair Mohammad Jahanzeb, MD. “We congratulate them on this achievement and hope that they serve as an example for other oncology practices in Romania and around the world to pursue QOPI Certification.”

In June 2016, ASCO announced that the Contemporary Oncology Team of Athens, Greece, had become the first international practice to receive QOPI® Certification. In April 2017, ASCO announced that Instituto de Oncologia do Vale had become the first practice in Brazil to receive QOPI Certification. Five months later, three practices in Spain achieved QOPI Certification:

• Servicio de Oncología Medica - Hospital Universitario General de Valencia,
• Servicio de Oncología Medica - Instituto Valenciano de Oncología, and
• Servicio de Oncología Medica - Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal.

ASCO is dedicated to innovative quality improvement programs, such as QOPI® and QOPI® Certification, to foster the delivery of high-quality patient care around the world. Learn more about ASCO quality programs.