Implementation of a Health System Intervention to Improve Quality of Cancer Care for Rural Patients

The purpose of this study is to implement and evaluate the recently developed Iowa Cancer Affiliate Network (ICAN) intervention.The ICAN intervention will consist of members of the research team providing ongoing support to participating hospitals in achieving the quality standards outlined by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC). Support will be offered in the form of education and training regarding the standards and provision of cancer services, regular in-person and zoom check-ins with hospital stakeholders to evaluate progress, and provision of documentation and educational resources regarding standard requirements.Implementation approach:1) Engage implementation teams and develop and execute implementation plans based on hospital needs assessments; and 2) Conduct interviews with key ICAN stakeholders to assess acceptability, adoption, appropriateness and cost (based on Proctor's implementation outcomes framework) and determinants of these outcomes (e.g., hospital structure, culture, resources, capacity, readiness) based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.Evaluation approach: Using Iowa Cancer Registry data routinely collected for surveillance purposes, the investigators will compare rates of compliance with pre- and post-intervention treatment-related quality measures in target and control hospitals. The rural hospitals in Iowa that serve the most rural cancer patients and have never been accredited by the CoC were chosen for intervention targets, and all committed to participating in the study (letters of support provided). The remainder of rural hospitals that care for >100 newly diagnosed cancer patients per year (n=5) were chosen as a comparison group. The investigators will use data routinely collected by the Iowa Cancer Registry to compare aggregate compliance with quality measures for cancer care between the hospitals included in the intervention and comparison group hospitals using a difference-in-difference estimator. In addition, the investigators will conduct interviews with representatives from intervention hospitals to assess the extent to which ICAN hospitals implemented the CoC standards of cancer care.

Inclusion Criteria:Administrators, clinicians, and data monitoring staff who help provide cancer related care at one of the four hospitals that have been included in our study.Exclusion Criteria:None