We will support the development and dissemination of quality improvement interventions and measure their success in improving health-related outcomes across the cancer continuum.

As interventions and technologies become more sophisticated, the cancer community must build upon research evidence to continually enhance the quality, safety, and appropriateness of care - including prevention, screening and follow-up, staging and accurate diagnosis, treatment and adjuvant therapy, and systematic follow-up to both prevent and detect recurrence and second cancers. It is also critical to prevent or identify and treat the chronic and other late effects of cancer and its treatment. This will be accomplished through the efforts of public health programs, primary care practitioners, oncologists, and others who care for cancer patients, survivors, and their families.

Desired health outcomes include survival and health-related quality of life. For cancer, high quality care means delivering the full range of evidence-based interventions that are safe, patient-centered, effective (i.e., likely to provide more benefit than harm), timely, efficient, and equitable. Such care must be provided with technical competence and cultural sensitivity and must foster patient choice based on informed decision making.

Research on quality of cancer care includes surveillance, epidemiologic, and cost-effectiveness studies. It includes examining patterns and variation in care among diverse patient populations and provider groups. Quality of care studies also encompass the development of ways to measure how well standards of care are applied in practice and the outcomes of that care. Outcomes include observable intermediate endpoints (tumor shrinkage, for example) and survival as well as outcomes reported by patients and/or caregivers. Stronger scientific evidence for public and private decision making related to care delivery, coverage, purchasing, regulation, and standard setting will enhance the efficiency and quality of cancer care services.

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