How equitable is access to treatment for lung cancer patients? A population-based review of treatment practices in Ontario.

Aim: Guideline concordance is one of the metrics used by the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario and Cancer Care Ontario to assess the quality of cancer care and to drive quality improvement.

Materials & Methods: The rates for lung cancer surgical resection and concordance with the Cancer Care Ontario postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) guideline were assessed by health region during two time periods (2010-2011 and 2012-2013) according to five equity measures (age, sex, neighborhood income, location of residence and size of immigrant population).

Results: Of the patients with stage I/II NSCLC, 52.

Raising the bar: using program evaluation for quality improvement.

The Cancer Quality Council of Ontario has undertaken 3 programmatic reviews, in partnership with Cancer Care Ontario, to evaluate an emerging or existing program and to provide future directions. The reviews are a quality improvement tool consisting of an assessment of the program's current state, a critical appraisal, and an environmental scan in advance of an event where attendees hear best practices from jurisdictions and participate in a discussion leading to a set of recommendations for the program.

A ten-year history: the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario.

One of the longest-established quality oversight organizations in Canadian healthcare, the Cancer Quality Council of Ontario (CQCO) is an advisory group formed in 2002 by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. Although quasi-independent from Cancer Care Ontario (CCO), the council was established to provide advice to CCO and the ministry in their efforts to improve the quality of cancer care in the province. The council is composed of a multidisciplinary group of healthcare providers, cancer survivors and experts in the areas of oncology, health system policy and administration, governance, performance measurement and health services research.

Overcoming barriers when implementing evidence at the bedside.

Implementing evidence is the basis for improving the organization of care, with the ultimate goal of achieving optimal patient outcomes. As implementing evidence can be a challenging task due to human and system barriers, we propose an innovative framework to facilitate knowledge translation at the bedside. This model is based on a problem-solving approach that was tested in the field of critical care.