A Blueprint for Advancing Quality in Breast Cancer
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Introduction: There is a growing consensus around both the need to address issues relating to the quality of healthcare in America and the importance of measurement and feedback on performance as tools to promote quality. In breast cancer, system barriers often prevent the coordination over time and between specialties that quality care requires, practice varies widely between providers, expensive technologies are used inefficiently, and disparities persist in women’s access to cutting-edge treatment. While a number of efforts seek to use measurement to drive improvement in breast cancer care, all are hampered by the inadequacy of current information systems to capture and report on the processes and outcomes most relevant to quality.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hypotheses: The aim of the proposed conference series to develop a “Blueprint for Advancing Quality in Breast Cancer Care" is to build consensus around a strategy for creating systems capable of surmounting the barrier to measurement in one disease area as a model for system-wide change. The blueprint would address three questions: 1) What data must information systems of the future be able to collect in order to enable more robust measurement of breast cancer care quality and better understand variation in care? 2) How can feedback on quality be most effectively used to drive change on the level of the clinic and practitioner? 3) What design principles should guide the creation of systems capable of capturing information related to quality as a routine byproduct of care?
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Methodology: To investigate these questions and develop the blueprint, we propose to conduct three workshops attended by invited experts in measurement science, health policy, health disparities, information technology, quality improvement and the practice of breast cancer care as well as patient representatives. We further propose to develop findings from these one day workshops as publishable papers and to present these papers at a national summary conference we will plan for June 2006. Speakers for this public meeting will be chosen to catalyze efforts to implement the quality blueprint. We are asking CBCRP to support the conduct of, and participant travel to the first workshop, "Toward a Quality Blueprint: Measurement in Breast Cancer," planned for October 28, 2005 at Harvard Business School.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Innovative elements: While there has been important work to survey, standardize, and develop quality measures in breast cancer care, all of these efforts have been limited to what it is feasible to collect with today’s information systems. The proposed workshop is about envisioning what we would measure and what data we would collect if systems had the capacity to capture quality-related information at the point of care. In doing so we would be creating a blueprint to spur the creation of these systems. The conference series is designed to create tangible work product and to generate a national consensus around the proposed blueprint.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Advocacy involvement and human issues: Improving the quality of care is one of the six elements of the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s vision for breast cancer care, and the development and use of new quality measures is a principle objective of the organization’s Quality Initiative. Advocates and patient representatives will be involved at every level in planning for and conducting this conference series: on the Steering Committee to refine focus and select participants, as pre-workshop consultants helping to refine the survey of measures and data elements that describe quality, and as workshop participants to present on what quality means to women facing breast cancer. The creation of new information systems will help ensure that every woman receives care that is as safe, effective, efficient, timely, equitable and patient-centered as possible.