Organizing the quality assessment in lung cancer care on the example of the Netherlands

Abstract

Introduction: In the Russian Federation and worldwide lung cancer (RL) is the leading malignancy. In order to improve the availability of modern diagnostic and treatment algorithms for a huge number of lung cancer patients, highly specialized audits of oncological care have been organized in many countries.Purpose: Reviewing the basic principles for organizing specialized national lung cancer care audits based on the example from the Netherlands.Materials and methods: The search for relevant articles was carried out in PubMed, as well as using the Google search engine. The search strings included keywords such as: «audit», «lung cancer», «Dutch», «the Netherlands» and many others.Results: Nowadays, the specialized Dutch audit for lung cancer relies on the sub‑registers devoted to the following topics: 1) medical practice of oncologists‑pulmonologists; 2) the activities of surgeons; 3) the work of radiation oncologists. Wide coverage of different treatment areas and digital integration provide a comprehensive picture of cancer care throughout all aspects of routing patients with RL in the Netherlands Selective sub‑audits are of great scientific and practical importance. Feedback systems, the latest digital technologies and a sufficient level of transparency ensure effective quality control of diagnostics and treatment of patients with lung cancer in the studied countries.Conclusion: Beneficial way to improve quality assurance is based on the use of complex, complementary principles of cognition, including holism, reductionism, induction methods, combinatorial analysis, etc. etc. Regardless of the implemented approaches to quality control, the cancer network should always remain focused on each single patient. The private interests of a particular patient, survival rate, quality of life with have determine the prioritized vector of innovative development of audits of oncological practice.