Federal Hospitals Could Improve Certain Cancer Treatment Capability by Sharing

The Department of Defense (DOD) and certain other Federal agencies provide cancer care in the form of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, to eligible beneficiaries.

Radiation therapy is used in treating about 60 percent of eligible cancer patients. In 1977 there were 45 radiation therapy facilities in the Federal sector. Thirty-six of them did not meet the existing utilization standards of about 6,000 treatments per unit a year established by DOD and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). Some 8 of the 36 facilities provided less than half the treatments set forth in the standards. The Veterans Administration (VA) established a utilization standard of about 2,850 treatments per year for a radiation therapy unit. In the United States, 23 geographic locations have a high potential for sharing Federal radiation therapy facilities. Facilities in 20 of these locations were underused, and at each of the locations there were also other Federal hospitals in the same geographic area that did not have the capability to provide radiation therapy.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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