American College of Surgeons Selects Polaris Oncology for its Best Practices Repository

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Langhorne, Pennsylvania, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) January 10, 2012 -- Polaris Health Directions is pleased to announce that the American College of Surgeons (ACoS) has listed the Polaris Oncology Distress Management System in its Best Practices Repository.

The repository, compiled by ACoS’s Commission on Cancer, identifies tools and resources that can best help cancer programs meet ACoS’s 2012 standards for accreditation. Polaris Oncology was selected for its ability to support oncologists with screening, referral to treatment and monitoring for psychosocial distress among cancer patients, a vital addition to the new standards.

When mental health conditions among cancer patients remain unaddressed, they can have a negative impact on treatment planning and engagement, increase suffering and diminish quality of life.

Polaris Oncology, developed with funding from the National Institute for Mental Health, is a Web-based solution to identify and help address psychosocial distress in cancer patients. Along with screening for depression and other mental health symptomology, Polaris Oncology assesses risky drinking and smoking; cancer-related physical symptoms and side effects; and adherence to the medical regimen and lifestyle change recommendations. The tailored, motivational patient reports and automated referrals increase the likelihood that cancer patients will be linked to the psychosocial resources and treatment they may need.

Polaris Oncology was normed for a cancer population, and was designed to ease, not add to, the high demands clinicians face when managing cancer patients. The system is flexible, can be easily integrated into existing clinical workflows and includes an industry-standard HL-7 interface for communicating with electronic health record systems. Polaris Oncology, in harmony with the 2012 ACoS distress management standards, can help ensure that patients are active participants in their health care, have the support they need to manage their illness and ultimately realize better outcomes.

For more information, contact Polaris at moreinfo@polarishealth.com or visit http://www.polarishealth.com/oncology. Follow Polaris on Facebook. Polaris’s listing in the ACoS Best Practice Repository can be found here: https://www.socialtext.net/cancer_standards/Proprietary Material.

About Polaris Health Directions

At Polaris, we recognize that organizations cannot manage what they do not measure. Many behavioral health care providers and payers may not be collecting and analyzing enough of the right data to answer basic questions about the cost-effectiveness of the care they offer. Polaris's advanced technology and science driven assessment systems are designed to capture the clinical data essential to quality improvement and enhanced organizational management. Polaris solutions provide advanced analytics to help you improve and demonstrate to your customers the value of your care. With a focus on prediction, Polaris solutions do more than describe clinical change. Our systems also indicate if treatment is likely to have a positive result. Helping you make better decisions in the present by anticipating the future will be the difference in reducing your costs while improving patient care.

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