Improving quality of care by standardising patient data collection in electronic medical records in an oncology department in Spain.

BACKGROUND

Evaluation of quality of care in oncology is key in ensuring patients receive adequate treatment. American Society of Clinical Oncology's (ASCO) Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) Certification Program (QCP) is an international initiative that evaluates quality of care in outpatient oncology practices.

METHODS

We retrospectively reviewed free-text electronic medical records from patients with breast cancer (BR), colorectal cancer (CRC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In a baseline measurement, high scores were obtained for the nine disease-specific measures of QCP Track (2021 version had 26 measures); thus, they were not further analysed. We evaluated two sets of measures: the remaining 17 QCP Track measures, as well as these plus other 17 measures selected by us (combined measures). Review of data from 58 patients (26 BR; 18 CRC; 14 NSCLC) seen in June 2021 revealed low overall quality scores (OQS)-below ASCO's 75% threshold-for QCP Track measures (46%) and combined measures (58%). We developed a plan to improve OQS and monitored the impact of the intervention by abstracting data at subsequent time points.

RESULTS

We evaluated potential causes for the low OQS and developed a plan to improve it over time by educating oncologists at our hospital on the importance of improving collection of measures and highlighting the goal of applying for QOPI certification. We conducted seven plan-do-study-act cycles and evaluated the scores at seven subsequent data abstraction time points from November 2021 to December 2022, reviewing 404 patients (199 BR; 114 CRC; 91 NSCLC). All measures were improved. Four months after the intervention, OQS surpassed the quality threshold and was maintained for 10 months until the end of the study (range, 78-87% for QCP Track measures; 78-86% for combined measures).

CONCLUSIONS

We developed an easy-to-implement intervention that achieved a fast improvement in OQS, enabling our Medical Oncology Department to aim for QOPI certification.

Informations de copyright

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Competing interests: GA-JC has received honoraria for lectures from AstraZeneca and Roche. RLL has received honoraria for participation in advisory boards from Roche, AstraZeneca, Merck, MSD, Bayer, BMS, Novartis, Janssen, Lilly, Pfizer and Leo; travel, accommodations and expenses from Pharmamar, Roche, BMS and Pierre Fabre; research funding from Roche and Merck; and is co-founder and shareholder in Nasasbiotech and Diversa Technologies. RGC has reported a consulting or advisory role for Roche/Genentech, MSD Oncology, AstraZeneca, BMS, Pfizer, Novartis, Takeda, Boehringer Ingelheim and Janssen Oncology; speaker’s bureau fees from Roche, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Novartis, Takeda, Boehringer Ingelheim, MSD Oncology, Sanofi/Aventis, Janssen Oncology, Amgen and Lilly; and travel, accommodations and expenses from Roche/Genentech, MSD Oncology and Pfizer.