Given the range of settings in which people receive cancer care, the large number of people afflicted with cancer, and the lack of robust data on the quality of care, making widespread improvements to cancer care is a challenge. Improving the quality of care will require, at a minimum, a system that can measure and track changes in the quality of care, can be used at many different kinds of institutions, and captures and reports data in real time. The system must also be reliable enough to be potentially used as a basis for rewards (such as a pay-for-performance system), and to enhance patient choice. 

Members of the Center are engaged in research and policy development related to measuring different aspects of cancer care quality. Their work seeks to uncover variations in practice that could explain differences in outcomes. The goal is for measurement to lead to the identification of modifiable factors that could improve the quality of care and ultimately improve outcomes for patients with cancer.

Recently, members of the Center collaborated with Mathematica and other partners to successfully develop an “Admissions and Emergency Department (ED) Visits for Patients Receiving Outpatient Chemotherapy” measure with the goal of assessing the current provision of care and eventually reducing preventable ED visits and hospital admissions.