Best of the Best Oral Presentation Clinical Oncology Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting 2020

Developing clinical indicators for Oncology: the inaugural indicator set for The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards (ACHS) (#36)

Eva Segelov 1 2 , Christine Carrington 3 , Sanchia Aranda 4 , David Currow 5 , John Zalcberg 6 , Alexander Heriot 7 , Linda Mileshkin 7 8 , John Bashford 9 , John Coutsouvelis 6 , Carmel O’Kane 10 , Anthony Sulkowski 11 , Janney Wale 12 , Stephen Hancock 13 , Jen Bichel‐Findlay 14 , Jeremy Millar 6 , Jon Emery 14 , Phoebe Zhang 15 16 , Brian Collopy 15 , Simon Cooper 16
  1. Monash Health, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  2. Monash University, Clayton, VIC, Australia
  3. Princess Alexandra Hospital and School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland, Brisbane
  4. Cancer Council Australia, Sydney
  5. Cancer Institute NSW, Sydney, Australia, Sydney
  6. Monash University and Alfred Health, Melbourne, Australia
  7. Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  8. St Vincent's Clinical School, University of New South Wales, Darlinghurst, NSW, Australia
  9. Icon Cancer Care, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  10. Wimmera Health Care Group, Horsham, Victoria, Australia
  11. Western Private Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  12. Consumer Representative, Melbourne, Victoria
  13. Health Services Research Group, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
  14. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  15. The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  16. The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Aim: To produce a set of clinical indicators for cancer health care institutional providers to use as quality measures in the Clinical Indicator Program, a data collection and reporting service of ACHS that measures and benchmarks performance of aspects of clinical care in peer organisations, in addition to the existing ACHS Radiation Oncology clinical indicators.

Method: The Performance and Outcomes Service at ACHS coordinated a four‐stage process based on a modified Delphi approach. In Stage 1, the 16‐member Steering Committee scoped the broad parameters. Stage 2 consisted of a literature review and search of international benchmarks, then a ranking process based on ease of accessibility and clinical relevance. The broader stakeholder group met in Stage 3 to discuss the top ranked indicators and produce a final set. Finally, indicators were mapped to clinical codes and explained in a formal user manual, then ratified by COSA and the ACHS Board.

Results: The initial face to face meeting resolved the ‘big picture’ nature of the desired set and achieved consensus between Steering Committee members, comprising broad cancer craft group representation plus consumer representation. From an initial set of 65 potential indicators, ranking produced a list of 27 indicators which were discussed in detail with the broader stakeholder group (n=21) at a second face‐to‐face meeting. The final set of 16 cancer clinical indicators (Table 1) was ratified by COSA and ACHS for use in July 2020.

Conclusions: Despite initial concerns about generating a comprehensive set of cancer clinical indicators that covered the wide spectrum of cancer care, the structured expert consensus process worked smoothly to resolve a final set of 16 indicators that are considered easy to collect and clinically informative.