Medical oncologists in Brazil are being encouraged to take advantage of a new measure set for assessing the quality of care they provide to patients with lung cancer.
Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent and deadly types of cancer in Brazil.1 Providing a platform for health-care providers to track lung cancer care and outcome data and compare it to peers domestically and internationally may lead to urgently needed insights and initiatives for improving the quality of care for those with lung cancer in that region.
Several of the reporting measures were developed through a collaboration between the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) and ASCO. Using ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) online registry—free to all practices with at least one active ASCO member—these practitioners can report on more than 19 quality measures, with 13 specifically related to lung cancer treatment. The new QOPI lung measures have been packaged with other core and symptom measures into a new lung cancer track available in the QOPI dashboard to practices in Brazil.
Dave Mesko, MBA
“The mission of the IASLC is to conquer thoracic cancers worldwide, and in order to achieve that mission, we must assist health-care practices and practitioners in providing the highest-quality care to patients with lung cancer,” said IASLC Chief Executive Officer Dave Mesko, MBA. “By collaborating with ASCO, we will be able to help the oncology community in Brazil continue to improve outcomes for their patients.”
Between 2014 and 2020, the number of medical oncologists in Brazil is expected to increase by 146%. Distribution of health-care professionals and the quality of care patients receive varies throughout the country, and these oncologists will be treating a growing population of patients as the incidence of cancer, particularly lung cancer, is expected to increase by almost 30% by 2030.2 Health-care disparities throughout the country already exist and are predicted to increase as the cancer incidence rises.
Howard A. ‘Skip’ Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO
“Our Society’s vision is a world where cancer is prevented or cured, and we can only achieve this goal with the help of other international organizations and our members around the world who work every day to provide their patients with high-quality care,” said ASCO President Howard A. ‘Skip’ Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO. “This collaboration with the IASLC will help us expand our reach and impact more clinicians and patients.”
The work of ASCO and the IASLC is aimed at identifying valuable training and educational opportunities that may benefit the Brazilian region to make health care more equitable for patients receiving cancer treatment.
ASCO has been providing the established QOPI platform in Brazil since 2015 and will continue its ongoing outreach in Brazil with the support of the IASLC’s strong network. This collaboration will help practices measure and promote the highest quality of lung cancer care for patients by encouraging the use of lung-specific measures codeveloped by ASCO and the IASLC. The IASLC will receive aggregate practice reports for those practices that have consented to having their collective quality scores shared. The IASLC will then use the reports to learn what education and training initiatives would improve the quality of care in this region.
QOPI is ASCO’s free, oncologist-led, practice-based quality assessment program. It has helped more than 1,000 practices to date conduct self-examination and identify specific areas for quality improvement. Participating practices can report on more than 145 evidence-based quality measures through the collection tool, and receive individual performance scores by practice, site, and provider, as well as benchmarked scores aggregated from all participating practices. The data and results then can be used to inform future quality improvement projects and initiatives.
In addition to Brazil and the United States and its five territories, QOPI is available to member practices in Argentina, Australia, the European Union (all countries), India, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.
For more information about QOPI, please visit practice.asco.org.
REFERENCES
1. Araujo LH, Baldotto C, Castro G Jr, et al: Lung cancer in Brazil. J Bras Pneumol 44:55-64, 2018.
2. Portich JP, Giacomazzi J, Morelle AM, et al: Brazilian medical oncologists: current and future perspectives for 2020. Braz J Oncol 13:1-8, 2017.
© 2019. American Society of Clinical Oncology. All rights reserved.
