One of the barriers to improving the quality of cancer care in the United States is the inadequacy of data systems. Out-of-date or incomplete information about the performance of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and public agencies makes it hard to gauge the quality of care. Augmenting today's data systems could start to fill the gap. This report examines the strengths and weaknesses of current systems and makes recommendations for enhancing data systems to improve the quality of cancer care. The board's recommendations fall into three key areas: Enhance key elements of the data system infrastructure (i.e., quality-of-care measures, cancer registries and databases, data collection technologies, and analytic capacity). Expand support for analyses of quality of cancer care using existing data systems. Monitor the effectiveness of data systems to promote quality improvement within health systems.

In the United States, approximately 14 million people have had cancer and more than 1.6 million new cases are diagnosed each year. However, more than a decade after the Institute of Medicine (IOM) first studied the quality of cancer care, the barriers to achieving excellent care for all cancer patients remain daunting. Care often is not patient-centered, many patients do not receive palliative care to manage their symptoms and side effects from treatment, and decisions about care often are not based on the latest scientific evidence. The cost of cancer care also is rising faster than many sectors of medicine--having increased to $125 billion in 2010 from $72 billion in 2004--and is projected to reach $173 billion by 2020. Rising costs are making cancer care less affordable for patients and their families and are creating disparities in patients' access to high-quality cancer care. There also are growing shortages of health professionals skilled in providing cancer care, and the number of adults age 65 and older--the group most susceptible to cancer--is expected to double by 2030, contributing to a 45 percent increase in the number of people developing cancer. The current care delivery system is poorly prepared to address the care needs of this population, which are complex due to altered physiology, functional and cognitive impairment, multiple coexisting diseases, increased side effects from treatment, and greater need for social support. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis presents a conceptual framework for improving the quality of cancer care. This study proposes improvements to six interconnected components of care: (1) engaged patients; (2) an adequately staffed, trained, and coordinated workforce; (3) evidence-based care; (4) learning health care information technology (IT); (5) translation of evidence into clinical practice, quality measurement and performance improvement; and (6) accessible and affordable care. This report recommends changes across the board in these areas to improve the quality of care. Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis provides information for cancer care teams, patients and their families, researchers, quality metrics developers, and payers, as well as HHS, other federal agencies, and industry to reevaluate their current roles and responsibilities in cancer care and work together to develop a higher quality care delivery system. By working toward this shared goal, the cancer care community can improve the quality of life and outcomes for people facing a cancer diagnosis.

This open access book provides a valuable resource for hospitals, institutions, and health authorities worldwide in their plans to set up and develop comprehensive cancer care centers. The development and implementation of a comprehensive cancer program allows for a systematic approach to evidence-based strategies of prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and palliation. Comprehensive cancer programs also provide a nexus for the running of clinical trials and implementation of novel cancer therapies with the overall aim of optimizing comprehensive and holistic care of cancer patients and providing them with the best opportunity to improve quality of life and overall survival. This book's self-contained chapter format aims to reinforce the critical importance of comprehensive cancer care centers while providing a practical guide for the essential components needed to achieve them, such as operational considerations, guidelines for best clinical inpatient and outpatient care, and research and quality management structures. Intended to be wide-ranging and applicable at a global level for both high and low income countries, this book is also instructive for regions with limited resources. The Comprehensive Cancer Center: Development, Integration, and Implementation is an essential resource for oncology physicians including hematologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, and oncology nurses as well as hospitals, health departments, university authorities, governments and legislators.

Developing or existing breast cancer centres strive to provide the highest quality care possible within their current financial and personnel resources. Written by a team of over 100 experts from 25 countries, this book provides a practical and comprehensive guide to delivering high quality breast cancer care wherever you live.

This book explains how telemedicine can offer solutions capable of improving the care and survival rates of cancer patients and can also help patients to live a normal life in spite of their condition. Different fields of application – community, hospital and home based – are examined, and detailed attention is paid to the use of tele-oncology in rural/extreme rural settings and in developing countries. The impact of new technologies and the opportunities afforded by the social web are both discussed. The concluding chapters consider eLearning in relation to cancer care and assess the scope for education to improve prevention. No medical condition can shatter people’s lives as cancer does today and the need to develop strategies to reduce the disease burden and improve quality of life is paramount. Readers will find this new volume in Springer’s TELe Health series to be a rich source of information on the important contribution that can be made by telemedicine in achieving these goals.

The goal of eliminating disparities in health care in the United States remains elusive. Even as quality improves on specific measures, disparities often persist. Addressing these disparities must begin with the fundamental step of bringing the nature of the disparities and the groups at risk for those disparities to light by collecting health care quality information stratified by race, ethnicity and language data. Then attention can be focused on where interventions might be best applied, and on planning and evaluating those efforts to inform the development of policy and the application of resources. A lack of standardization of categories for race, ethnicity, and language data has been suggested as one obstacle to achieving more widespread collection and utilization of these data. Race, Ethnicity, and Language Data identifies current models for collecting and coding race, ethnicity, and language data; reviews challenges involved in obtaining these data, and makes recommendations for a nationally standardized approach for use in health care quality improvement.