VA Puget Sound achieves accreditation for radiation oncology services from ASTRO's APEx - Accreditation Program for Excellence®
VA Puget Sound Health Care System successfully attained accreditation from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) APEx - Accreditation Program for Excellence®. APEx provides external validation that a radiation oncology facility is delivering high-quality patient care.
"ASTRO commends VA Puget Sound Health Care System for achieving APEx accreditation," said Chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors Jeff M. Michalski, MD, MBA, FASTRO. "By undergoing this comprehensive review, the facility demonstrated their strong commitment to delivering safe, high-quality radiation oncology services to their patients."
APEx, the fastest-growing radiation oncology practice accreditation program in the United States, is a voluntary, objective and rigorous multi-step process during which a radiation oncology practice is evaluated using consensus-based standards. The practice must demonstrate its safety and quality processes and show that it adheres to patient-centered care by promoting effective communication, coordinated treatments and strong patient engagement.
"VA Puget Sound is pleased to receive APEx accreditation from ASTRO, the largest radiation oncology society in the world," said VA Puget Sound Director of Hospital and Speciality Medicine Rudolph Rodriguez, M.D. FACP. "Our radiation oncology team was invested in evaluating our processes to meet ASTRO's high standards for safety and quality. Achieving APEx accreditation underscores our dedication to delivering consistently safe patient-centered cancer care to our nation’s heroes—our Veterans."
APEx is the only radiation oncology accreditation program that includes a self-assessment, which allows practices to internally assess compliance with quality improvement standards. The practice then proceeds to a facility review by an external surveyor team that includes a radiation oncologist and a medical physicist. The program reflects the recommendations endorsed in the ASTRO publication Safety is No Accident: A Framework for Quality Radiation Oncology and Care. To date, more than 300 U.S. facilities have earned APEx accreditation. Learn more about APEx at www.astro.org/APEx.
VA Puget Sound’s accreditation is effective until July 2027.
About VA Puget Sound
VA Puget Sound provides comprehensive care to more than 155,000 enrolled Veterans across Western Washington with a primary care team at one of its care sites: two main campuses (American Lake and Seattle), seven outpatient clinics (Edmonds, Everett, Mount Vernon, Olympia, Port Angeles, Puyallup and Silverdale) and Community Resource & Referral Center (Georgetown neighborhood in Seattle) and a Homeless Primary Care Team in Renton. As the VA’s 4th largest research program, VA Puget Sound has research in virtually every major clinical department, including: TBI and multiple blast exposures; memory improvement and Alzheimer's Disease; PTSD and deployment health; Parkinson’s Disease; diabetes; cancer; substance abuse; lower limb prosthetics; genomics; and Health Services. Additionally, it has nine nationally recognized centers of excellence (in areas from limb-loss prevention and prosthetic engineering to primary care education and substance abuse treatment). For more information visit www.va.gov/puget-sound-health-care or call 800-329-8387. For Veterans in Crisis, please use the Veterans Crisis line at 988 (press 1).