Quality of Care

Comorbid Conditions In Cancer Survivors: Costs And Quality Of Care

  • PI & co-PIs:      Claire Snyder, PhD and Kevin Frick, PhD
  • Funder:            National Cancer Institute
  • Status:              Results published

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition documents the many challenges cancer survivors face in obtaining quality follow-up care, including care for comorbid conditions. This study  updated the previous research to survivors diagnosed in more recent years and also expanded the patient population to include colorectal, prostate, and breast cancer survivors. These three tumor types account for half of the estimated 11.1 million cancer survivors living in the United States. The specific aims were the following: (1) to compare the quality of care for chronic comorbid conditions between survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer and non-cancer controls, examining each cancer type separately, (2) to compare the rates of avoidable complications between survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer and non-cancer controls, examining each cancer type separately, and (3) to compare the association between quality indicators and costs among survivors of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer and matched controls, examining each cancer type separately. To conduct the study, we used the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database supplemented with information from the American Medical Association masterfile. The results of this study will inform interventions to improve the quality of care for cancer survivors.

Publications:

Snyder CF, Frick KD, Herbert RJ, Blackford AL, Neville BA, Wolff AC, Carducci MA , Earle CC.  Quality of Care for Comorbid Conditions during the Transition to Survivorship: Differences between Cancer Survivors and Non-Cancer Controls.  Journal of Clinical Oncology. 2013;31:1140-1148. PMC3595422

Snyder CF, Frick KD, Herbert RJ, Blackford AL, Neville BA, Lemke KW, Carducci MA, Wolff AC, Earle CC.  Comorbid Condition Care Quality in Cancer Survivors: Role of Primary Care and Specialty Providers and Care Coordination.  Journal of Cancer Survivorship.  2015 Feb 26 [Epub ahead of print].

Pollack CE, Frick KD, Herbert RJ, Blackford AL, Neville BA, Wolff AC, Carducci MA, Earle CC, Snyder  CF.  It’s Who You Know:  Patient-Sharing, Quality, and Costs of Cancer Survivorship Care.  Journal of Cancer Survivorship: Research and Practice.  2014 Feb 28. [Epub ahead of print] PMC4064794