Metropolitan Chicago Breast Cancer Task Force Announced Members of Chicago Breast Cancer Quality ...(and treatment and will have the best cha...),Health

For the first year, expert advisory boards for both mammography and breast cancer treatment have selected quality measures to analyze based on published scientific literature and clinical guidelines established by national medical organizations. Each participating institution is now in the process of collecting this data for submission to the Consortium.

Once the aggregated data has been analyzed, findings will be reported back to institutions and a report card will be issued to the community. The report card will not disclose names of the institutions but will discuss the variability in quality and make quality improvement recommendations.

"The hypothesis driving this project is that differences in the quality of breast health care from institution to institution contribute to the differences in outcomes leading to lives lost, in particular in communities of color," said Anne Marie Murphy, PhD, Director, Chicago Breast Cancer Quality Consortium. "The formation of a PSO offers our health care partners a secure environment, protected by legal privilege and confidentiality, to freely share quality information about their institutions."

Task Force Calls for Full Funding of IBCCP

The Task Force also called on Governor Pat Quinn and the Illinois Legislature to provide adequate funding for the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program (IBCCP), which they said is grossly underfunded.

"In Illinois, 300,000 women are eligible for mammograms through the IBCCP program, but the program only has enough money to fund mammograms for 33,000, or only one in 10 women," said Barbara Akpan, Chair of the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association and a breast cancer survivor. "That is just plain unacceptable. A regular mammogram can be the difference between life and death. Every woman has a right to breast cancer
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