Quality of Head & Neck Cancer Care

At the Cedars-Sinai Head & Neck Cancer Center, each patient is treated as an individual and given a specialized plan of care.

Each patient's needs are reviewed and discussed by our expert team of head and neck surgeons, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologist, pathologists, speech therapists, and nurses. Complex cases are presented at the Head and Neck Tumor Board to help physicians consider all the factors involved. On this basis, the team creates a treatment plan designed to preserve the best quality of life for each patient.

Physicians at the Head and Neck Cancer Center are highly experienced at treating common cases as well as difficult cases of head and neck cancer. They specialize in minimally invasive surgery to treat head and neck tumors, as well as thyroid and parathyroid conditions. Transoral laser microsurgery, a recent advancement, preserves normal tissue, causes less pain, and helps maintain speech and swallowing.

Many of our physicians are members of professional organizations such as the American Head and Neck Society, the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Measuring the Quality of Care at the Cedars-Sinai Head & Neck Cancer Center

To continually improve upon the care given to patients at the Cedars-Sinai Head and Neck Cancer Center of Excellence, a number of factors that lead to a high quality of care are monitored. These include:

• The volume of procedures done. Studies have demonstrated that hospitals that regularly perform a particular procedure tend to have better outcomes than those that perform the procedure less frequently.
• The percentage of procedures done on an outpatient basis. Procedures done on an outpatient basis tend to be minimally invasive. Outpatient procedures are usually easier to recover from and present less disruption to a patient's daily activities.
• Readmission rates. Hospitals with low readmission rates tend to have fewer complications and patients have a faster recovery.

In 2009, Cedars-Sinai performed 438 procedures relating to head and neck cancers, of which over 190 procedures were thyroid and parathyroid surgeries. Of the 438 procedures, 18% were completed on an outpatient basis such as larynx cases, laser tongue resections, parathyroidectomies and hemithyroidectomies. Cedars-Sinai head and neck cancer surgical patients are seldom readmitted to the hospital within 30 days. The readmission rate for this patient population was 1.32% in 2009.