Dashboard report on performance on select quality indicators to cancer care providers

Abstract

Objective: Cancer quality registers are attracting increasing attention as important, but still underutilized sources of clinical data. To optimize the use of registers in quality assurance and improvement, data have to be rapidly collected, collated and presented as actionable, at-a-glance information to the reporting departments. This article presents a dashboard performance report on select quality indicators to cancer care providers. Materials and methods: Ten quality indicators registered on an individual patient level in the National Prostate Cancer Register of Sweden and recommended by the National Prostate Cancer Guidelines were selected. Data reported to the National Prostate Cancer Register are uploaded within 24 h to the Information Network for Cancer Care platform. Launched in 2014, “What’’s Going On, Prostate Cancer” provides rapid, at-a-glance performance feedback to care providers. Results: The indicators include time to report to the National Prostate Cancer Register, waiting times, designated clinical nurse specialist, multidisciplinary conference, adherence to guidelines for diagnostic work-up and treatment, and documentation and outcome of treatment. For each indicator, three performance levels were defined. Conclusion: What’s Going On, a dashboard performance report on 10 selected quality indicators to cancer care providers, provides an example of how data in cancer quality registers can be transformed into condensed, at-a-glance information to be used as actionable metrics for quality assurance and improvement.

Key Words:

• Cancer quality registers
• quality improvement
• quality measurement

Acknowledgements

This project was made possible by the continuous work of the National Prostate Cancer Register of Sweden (NPCR) steering group: Pär Stattin (chairman), Anders Widmark, Camilla Thellenberg, Ove Andrén, Anna Bill Axelson, Ann-Sofi Fransson, Magnus Törnblom, Stefan Carlsson, Marie Hjälm-Eriksson, Bill Pettersson, David Robinson, Mats Andén, Jan-Erik Damber, Jonas Hugosson, Ingela Franck Lissbrant, Maria Nyberg, Göran Ahlgren, Ola Bratt, René Blom, Lars Egevad, Calle Walller, Kent Lewen, Olof Akre, Per Fransson, Eva Johansson, Fredrik Sandin, Hans Garmo, Mats Lambe, Karin Hellström, Annette Wigertz and Erik Holmberg.

Funding: This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council [grant no. 825-2012-5047], the Swedish Cancer Foundation [grant no. 11 0471] and the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data; preparation, review or approval of the manuscript.

Declaration of interest: Pär Stattin, Fredrik Sandin, Torsten Sandbäck, Ingela Franck Lissbrant, David Robinson and Mats Lambe have no conflict of interest to declare. Ola Bratt has received honoraria from AstraZeneca. Jan-Erik Damber has an advisory role in Sandoz and Lilly and has been paid for speakers’ Bureau for Astellas, Jansen and Lilly, and his research is funded by Ipsen and Active Biotech.