Measuring the Impact of Academic Cancer Network Development on Clinical Integration, Quality of Care, and Patient Satisfaction.

Purpose: Many US academic centers have acquired community practices to expand their clinical care and research footprint. The objective of this assessment was to determine whether the acquisition and integration of community oncology practices by Yale/Smilow Cancer Hospital improved outcomes in quality of care, disease team integration, clinical trial accrual, and patient satisfaction at network practice sites.

Methods: We evaluated quality of care by testing the hypothesis that core Quality Oncology Practice Initiative measures at network sites that were acquired in 2012 were significantly different after their 2016 integration into the network.