While it is well established that highly specialized cancer care can be expected to result in better clinical outcomes for patients, its cost effectiveness has been less clear (and sometimes even contested), given the costs of additional services, quality control mechanisms, and the processes associated with certification.
A new study provides compelling data in support of the economic value of certification in breast cancer care. It represents an impressive accomplishment by Min-Wai Lwin (who will submit it as an integral part of his PhD thesis project in Heidelberg) and a large team of scientists, building on prior analyses led by Jochen Schmitt and Olaf Schoffer in Dresden. The study should be read alongside earlier work by Chih-Yuan Cheng et al. (which also was part of a PhD thesis project in Heidelberg) who showed that colon cancer care delivered in a certified cancer center setting in Germany not only improves survival outcomes, but also saves costs from a healthcare system's perspective.
Even though both studies were conducted in the specific German environment, with accreditation rules set by the German Cancer Society (Deutsche Krebsgesellschaft), they provide relevant insights also for international efforts to provide patients equal access to a high quality of cancer care in multidisciplinary teams and to ensure that cancer research and innovation are fully integrated into patient care – as for example undertaken by the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI).