Process improvement in breast cancer care: Is mammography volume associated with a greater need for process improvement?

Abstract

6609 Background: Chicago Black women are 62% more likely to die from breast cancer than White women. Previous data from 39 Chicago hospitals suggested significant variation in mammography quality (Chicago Breast Cancer Quality Consortium, 2010). We developed process improvement recommendations for sites that participated in our care process assessment (Weldon CB, et al, ASCO-Abstract-6120-2012). This study was funded through a generous grant from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. We compared improvement needs between high and low patient volume institutions. Methods: Using Deming’s PDCA cycle for continuous improvement, we created care process improvement recommendations for 25 Chicago institutions with the patient base averaging more than 50% minority patients (20 community, 3 academic and 2 public hospitals). Low mammography volume (< 5000 mammograms/ year) was reported by 12 of the 25 sites. Recommendations are based on analysis across sites, literature, and input from institution staff. Thematic and statistical analyses were performed using simple frequencies and Fisher's exact test. Results: Improvement recommendations are classified into nine areas, see table. We found that 100% (12/12) of low mammography volume institutions have specific improvement needs in 6 or more process improvement areas, as compared to 23% (3/13) of the high mammography volume institutions (pvalue > 0.0001). Conclusions: Lower volume mammography sites have a larger need for breast cancer care process improvements. [Table: see text]