UCI Health earns Blue Distinction for cancer care from Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

August 16, 2019

UCI Health is pleased to announce that its cancer program has been named a Blue Distinction Center for Specialty Care by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

To earn Blue Distinction for Cancer Care, a hospital must provide a full range of cancer services. These centers have a demonstrated focus on delivering quality and value through patient-centered, coordinated care. The Blue Distinction Specialty Care Program helps patients find high-quality providers who have demonstrated better quality care and improved patient outcomes.

UCI Medical Center has one of only two Blue Distinction-certified cancer programs in California.

Blue Distinction Centers for Cancer Care is a national designation program by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association that recognizes physicians, physician practices, cancer centers and hospitals for their efforts in coordinating all types of cancer care. This program incorporates patient-centered and data-driven practices, to coordinate care better and to improve quality of care and safety, as well as affordability.

Part of Orange County’s only academic health system, the UCI Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 51 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. It is Orange County’s only such center and is the only local institution where people with advanced-stage or treatment-resistant diseases can access early-phase clinical trials involving the very latest therapies.

The Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center features a world-class, multidisciplinary team of UCI Health surgeons, radiation oncologists, oncologists, pathologists, nurses, rehabilitation therapists, pharmacists, social workers and dietitians, to address cancers of all types and degrees of severity.

UCI Health has one of the handful of oncology services nationwide to have earned Quality Oncology Practice Initiative certification continuously since 2011 from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the world’s largest oncology association. This recognition certifies that UCI Health has achieved and maintains the highest standards excellence in its oncology practice.

In addition to its primary location at the UCI Medical Center campus in Orange, the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center delivers care at the UCI Health Cancer — Center Newport in Costa Mesa. Breast cancer and breast health services are available at UCI Health Pacific Breast Care Center in Costa Mesa and UCI Health — Yorba Linda. Infusion services also will be available at the Yorba Linda facility in early 2020.

For an appointment with UCI Health cancer services, call 714-456-8000.

UCI Health is also a Blue Distinction Center+ for Bariatric Surgery and a Blue Distinction Center for Cardiac Care.

UCI Health is the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine. Patients can access UCI Health at primary and specialty care offices across Orange County and at its main campus, UCI Medical Center in Orange, California. The 417-bed acute care hospital, listed among America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for the 19th consecutive year, provides tertiary and quaternary care, ambulatory and specialty medical clinics, and behavioral health and rehabilitation services. UCI Medical Center is home to Orange County’s only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center, high-risk perinatal/neonatal program and American College of Surgeons-verified Level I adult and Level II pediatric trauma center and regional burn center. UCI Health serves a region of nearly 4 million people in Orange County, western Riverside County and southeast Los Angeles County. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.