Accuracy and Thoroughness of Treatment Summaries Provided as Part of Survivorship Care Plans Prepared by Two Cancer Centers

Abstract

Purpose: Treatment summaries prepared as part of survivorship care planning should correctly and thoroughly report diagnosis and treatment information. Methods: As part of a clinical trial, summaries were prepared for patients with stage 0 to III breast cancer at two cancer centers. Summaries were prepared per the standard of care at each center via two methods: using the electronic health record (EHR) to create and facilitate autopopulation of content or using manual data entry into an external software program to create the summary. Each participant's clinical data were abstracted and cross-checked against each summary. Errors were defined as inaccurate information, and omissions were defined as missing information on the basis of the Institute of Medicine recommended elements. Results: One hundred twenty-one summaries were reviewed: 80 EHR based versus 41 software based. Twenty-four EHR-based summaries (30%) versus six software-based summaries (15%) contained one or more omissions. Omissions included failure to provide dates and specify all axillary surgeries for EHR-based summaries and failure to specify receptors for software-based summaries. Eight EHR-based summaries (10%) versus 19 software-based summaries (46%) contained one or more errors. Errors in EHR-based summaries were mostly discrepancies in dates, and errors in software-based summaries included incorrect stage, surgeries, chemotherapy, and receptors. Conclusion: A significant proportion of summaries contained at least one error or omission; some were potentially clinically significant. Mismatches between the clinical scenario and templates contributed to many of the errors and omissions. In an era of required care plan provision, quality measures should be considered and tracked to reduce rates, decrease inadvertent contributions from templates, and support audited data use.