Cancer care in the US needs a radical overhaul, says Institute of Medicine

A growing number of cancer patients, the complexity and cost of cancer care, and a shrinking cancer care workforce are all contributing to a worsening crisis in the US cancer care delivery system, the US Institute of Medicine has said in a new report.1

In a statement released with the report Patricia Ganz, chairwoman of the committee that wrote the report, and a professor at the School of Medicine and School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, said, “As a nation we need to chart a new course for cancer care. Changes are needed across the board, from how we communicate with patients, to how we translate research into practice, to how we coordinate care and measure its quality.”

The committee pointed out in the report that as America ages the number of new cases of cancer …