Establishing achievable benchmarks for quality improvement in systemic therapy for early-stage breast cancer.

263 Background: Setting realistic targets for performance on quality indicators (QI) is a consistent challenge in quality improvement. The purpose of this study was to utilize administrative data to define achievable targets for QI in the early stage breast cancer (EBC) population in relation to systemic therapy (ST) delivery based on best performers.

METHODS: Deterministically linked administrative healthcare databases were used to identify EBC cases diagnosed 2006 - 2010 in Ontario, Canada. Panel of previously established QIs for systemic therapy was applied to patients who met eligibility criteria for the individual indicators. Institutions with less than 10 eligible patients for a specific indicator were excluded. An empiric benchmark was defined as the proportion of patients meeting the indicator from institutions accounting for the top decile of eligible patients.

RESULTS: We identified 28,303 EBC patients who received surgery of which 12,252 received adjuvant chemotherapy. Benchmark results are summarized in Table.

CONCLUSIONS: Many institutions fell considerably below the benchmark. Further analysis of institution-level drivers of high quality care is required to help characterize high performing institutions. [Table: see text].