Aim
To develop a tool which allows clinicians, hospital administrators and other support staff to monitor the completeness of demographic and clinical patient data in conjunction with providing real-time monitoring of outcomes in the safety and quality domain.
Method
QOOL is a web-based tool used by Multi-disciplinary teams (MDT) for data collection and co-ordination of care of Queensland cancer patients. The data contained in QOOL is drawn from administrative and clinical data collections across the state and is supplemented with the data recorded at MDT.
Two components have been developed for the dashboard, the first is a data quality dashboard which shows the distribution and completeness of clinical data collected at MDT such as diagnosis, stage and treatment recommendations. The second component is a reporting dashboard for quality indicators, measuring outcomes for cancer patients attending the MDT. Initial development focused on outcomes for breast and colorectal cancer patients.
Results
The development of an interactive, real-time dashboard allows MDT’s to monitor clinical outcomes such as mastectomy rates for T1 tumours, radiation therapy following breast conserving surgery, surgical mortality and waiting times for treatment. The dashboard is a valuable companion tool and builds on the static outcome reporting provided at a hospital level each year, and can be used to measure the effectiveness of process change in the cancer care setting. The utilisation of real-time data offers advantages over standard reporting based on cancer registry incidence data which can often be several years behind.
Conclusion
The QOOL-Dash is a valuable tool in the kit of Queensland cancer MDT, allowing them to interactively monitor patient outcomes. The strength of QOOL-Dash lies in the currency of the data available through daily refreshes with the ability to compare local process and outcomes with state-wide benchmarks established in existing quality reporting structures.