Development of clinically meaningful quality indicators for contemporary lung cancer care, and piloting and evaluation in a retrospective cohort; experiences of the Embedding Research (and Evidence) in Cancer Healthcare (EnRICH) Program

Abstract

ObjectivesLung cancer continues to be the most common cause of cancer-related death and the leading cause of morbidity and burden of disease across Australia. There is an ongoing need to identify and reduce unwarranted clinical variation that may contribute to these poor outcomes for patients with lung cancer. An Australian national strategy acknowledges clinical quality outcome data as a critical component of a continuously improving healthcare system but there is a need to ensure clinical quality indicators adequately measure evidence-based contemporary care, including novel and emerging treatments. This study aimed to develop a suite of lung cancer-specific, evidence-based, clinically acceptable quality indicators to measure quality of care and outcomes, and an associated comparative feedback dashboard to provide performance data to clinicians and hospital administrators.DesignA multistage modified Delphi process was undertaken with a Clinical Advisory Group of multidisciplinary lung cancer specialists, with patient representation, to update and prioritise potential indicators of lung cancer care derived from a targeted review of published literature and reports from national and international lung cancer quality registries. Quality indicators were piloted and evaluated with multidisciplinary teams in a retrospective observational cohort study using clinical audit data from the Embedding Research (and Evidence) in Cancer Healthcare Program, a prospective clinical cohort of over 2000 patients with lung cancer diagnosed from May 2016 to October 2021.Setting and participantsSix tertiary specialist cancer centres in metropolitan and regional New South Wales, Australia.ResultsFrom an initial 37 potential quality indicators, a final set of 10 indicators spanning diagnostic, treatment, quality of life and survival domains was agreed.ConclusionsThese indicators build on and update previously available measures of lung cancer care and outcomes in use by national and international lung cancer clinical quality registries which, to our knowledge, have not been recently updated to reflect the changing lung cancer treatment paradigm.