Reporting the patterns of local medical practices with cancer patients to community hospital physicians: the methodology.

This is a presentation of the methods chosen to present initial data to the physician site committees in the Minneapolis-West Metro Community Hospital Cancer Program. This data will be presented at approximately six-month intervals so that guidelines can be modified, to maximize the effectiveness of the physician management guidelines. The reporting system has been designed to allow each hospital to look at its own data as compared to the aggregate total of all the hospitals (but never another individual hospital), and to allow more detailed studies within a local hospital using the usual quality assurance procedures. The goal is to help in meeting the American College of Surgeons requirement of accredited cancer programs of continued surveillance of the cancer treatment given and the results in hospitals, and to document the effect of the Community Hospital Cancer Program upon cancer patient management.