Building a Multidisciplinary Bridge Across the Quality Chasm in Thoracic Oncology

Lung cancer kills 160,000 patients annually; this represents 28% of all US cancer deaths. The overall year survival rate has only improved from 12% to 17% in 33 years. This failure reflects the innate lethality of lung cancer, but also reflects defects in patient care delivery. Care for the lung cancer patient starts with an abnormal radiologic scan, proceeds through a diagnostic biopsy, tests to determine the extent of spread of the disease (stage), selection of appropriate treatment, and finally ends with patient outcomes. At each step are multiple options and independent specialists, each one engaged by a process of sequential referrals in the serial care model. This process is often not user-friendly, is riddled with inefficiency, delays, and outcome variances.

The coordinated multidisciplinary model, in which patients and their doctors collaborate to provide evidence-based care, is believed by experts to be superior, but has few examples of successful implementation. The implementation gap exists because of the paucity of good quality data, and lack of implementation know-how.

Embedded in the highest US lung cancer mortality zone, the greater Memphis area has a racially, culturally, economically and geographically diverse population. The investigators research group has shown how poor quality care impairs patient survival in this region and in the greater US. The investigators have linked patient survival to compliance with multidisciplinary care plans. In this project, the investigators propose to rigorously test the impact of the multidisciplinary care model on patient outcomes in a community-based, private practice environment, similar to where 70% of lung cancer care is delivered in the US.

The objective of this study is to provide high-level evidence of the impact of multidisciplinary care on lung cancer patient outcomes. Multidisciplinary care is defined as a model of care in which patients, their care-givers and key specialists concurrently and directly evaluate the same patients in the presence of the patients and their informal caregivers, in order to develop evidence-based consensus care plans

Within the Baptist Memorial Health Care system, the Multidisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Program has two components: Primarily, the program is centered in a multidisciplinary clinic, wherein patients and their informal caregivers are seen by multiple specialists at a single appointment time; secondarily, the program includes a multidisciplinary conference, wherein all of the specialists potentially involved in lung cancer care discuss patients referred for presentation and make consensus recommendations for care. This study focuses primarily on the experience and outcomes of care delivered to patients evaluated in the multidisciplinary clinic. However, data from the conference will also be included in some aspects of the study. The goal is to improve the access and quality of thoracic oncologic care delivery within the Baptist Healthcare System The investigators specific aim is to perform a prospective, matched cohort comparative effectiveness study of patients receiving serial vs. multidisciplinary care, with key patient-centered endpoints (survival, stakeholder satisfaction with the care experience, timeliness and stage-appropriateness of care, quality of staging). Serial care is defined as the current system of linear, sequential, referral-based care delivery.

Eligibility Criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

- All patients who undergo care for lung cancer or an undiagnosed lung mass within the Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation's hospitals from January 1, 2009 until the end of the defined study period will be eligible for inclusion in the data collection for this study. In addition, caregivers of patients within the same institution and within the study window, clinical care providers (doctors and nurses) who have taken care of patients within the eligible institutions during the study window.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients who do not have a radiology-identified lung lesion or lung cancer are excluded from this study.
* Patients not receiving care within the Baptist Memorial Healthcare Corporation are excluded from this study.