Does hospital academic status impact colon cancer care value?

Abstract

6 Background: Given the high cost of cancer care, delivery of high-value care is crucial. The effect of hospital academic status on value of care for patients with stage II and III colon cancer is unknown. Methods: SEER-Medicare cohort study of 20,118 patients age 66+ with stage II or III colon cancer diagnosed 2000-2005 and followed through December 31, 2007. Patients were assigned to a treating hospital based on hospital affiliation of the primary oncologist. We constructed Kaplan-Meier curves to assess unadjusted overall survival. We estimated a Cox proportional hazards model to assess adjusted overall survival. To examine associations between hospital academic status and mean cost of care we estimated a generalized linear model (GLM) with log link and gamma family. We estimated quantile regression models to examine associations between hospital teaching status and cost at various quantiles (25th, 50th, 75th, 90th, 95th, 99th, 99.5th, 99.9th). Standard errors were adjusted to account for clustering of patients within hospitals. Results: 4449/20,118 (22%) patients received care from providers affiliated with academic hospitals. There was no significant difference in unadjusted median survival based on hospital academic status for patients with stage II (academic 6.4 yrs vs. non-academic 6.3 yrs, p=0.711) or stage III disease (academic 4.2 yrs vs. non-academic 4.2 yrs, p=0.81). After adjustment, treatment at academic hospitals was not associated with significantly reduced risk of death from colon cancer (stage II HR 1.05, 95% CI: 0.97 - 1.13; p=0.23; stage III HR 0.99, 95% CI: 0.94-1.07; p=0.98). Excepting stage III patients at the 99.9th percentile of costs, there were no significant differences in adjusted costs between academic and non-academic hospitals. Conclusions: We find no difference in overall survival for patients with stage II or stage III colon cancer based on academic status of the treating hospital. Furthermore, costs of care are similar between academic and non-academic hospitals across virtually the full range of the cost distribution. Most colon cancer patients do not receive cancer care at academic hospitals. Our findings indicate that for patients with stage II or III disease, this inequity does not impact the value of care.