Integrated Care Pathways in Lung Cancer: A Quality Improvement Project

Abstract

ICPs confirm to be feasible and to be an effective tool in real life. The periodic measurement of QoC indicators is necessary to ensure clinical governance of patients pathways.

Optimal Care Pathways for People with Lung Cancer- a Scoping Review of the Literature

“…Most of the care pathways were designed by multidisciplinary teams, consisting of clinicians who are directly involved in lung cancer management and health care researchers [ 24 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 ]. Patient involvement in the design of care pathways was quite limited, with only a few studies reporting patient engagement [ 36 37 ].…”

“…There were five studies on quality indicators and auditing lung cancer pathways [ 33 37 38 48 49 ]. The group from the University of Udine in Italy selected quality indicators from international guidelines and after discussions with the local multidisciplinary thoracic malignancy group [ 33 ]. These quality indicators can be used to identify problems in the local lung cancer pathway, such as delays and non-adherence to clinical guidelines [ 38 ].…”

“…A good practice is to share these data with managers with the aim of improving lung cancer care pathways and the efficiency of health care delivery [ 29 ]. The pathway tools will not achieve maximum success without an actual engagement of the hospital management [ 33 ]. Even after the cancer care pathway is implemented, it must be audited periodically, in order to ensure that all aspects of pathway are running optimally [ 38 49 ].…”

“…Most of the care pathways were designed by multidisciplinary teams, consisting of clinicians who are directly involved in lung cancer management and health care researchers [24,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. Patient involvement in the design Full-text articles assessed for eligibility (n =54)…”

European Cancer Organisation Essential Requirements for Quality Cancer Care (ERQCC): Lung cancer

“…• Examples of lung cancer care pathways are from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) [73], the UK NHS Lung Cancer Clinical Expert group [74], NHS Cancer Programme [75], Cancer Council Victoria, Australia [76], and Cancer Care Ontario [77]. Integrated care plans (ICPs) have been proposed as a way to improve patient-oriented quality in the highly complex diagnosis and treatment care pathways for lung cancer [78,79]. ICPs are described as structured multidisciplinary care plans for a specific clinical condition.…”