Quality of colorectal and anal cancer care delivered during the COVID pandemic.

Abstract

432 Background: Reports suggest that there have been significant impacts to the provision of cancer care with delays, interruptions and cancellations across all treatment modalities as a result of the COVID pandemic which have implications for the quality of care. We evaluated the impact of the early phase of the pandemic relative to the same period in the year prior using a panel of measures spanning the six domains of quality; 8 measures focused on pandemic-specific care modifications, and 16 established measures. Methods: The cohort consisted of all new patient consultations between 02/19 to 12/19 (comparator) or 02/20 to 12/20 (COVID) at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PM) in Toronto, Canada, who were >18 years of age and newly diagnosed with colon, rectal or anal cancer. Chart abstraction data was linked to Census and the Ontario Marginalization Index datasets to derive additional population-weighted sociodemographic variables. A summary quality score across established measures was computed and a benchmark was set using the pared mean approach representing the top 10% of performers. Associations between achieving the quality benchmark and patient characteristics were evaluated using a multivariable logistic regression model. Results: Relative to the year prior, there was a 12.2% reduction new patient consultations (294 vs 335). Significant findings for individual indicators are summarized below. Relative to English-first language patients, those whose first language was not English were 7.4 times less likely to achieve the benchmark (OR 0.13; 95% CI 0.01-0.61). Compared to those with stage I disease, patients with stage IV disease at diagnosis were 6.5 times less likely to achieve the benchmark (OR: 0.15; 95% CI 0.02-0.78). Conclusions: While overall quality of care was poorer during the early phase of the pandemic, there was a reduction in the proportion of patients treated with systemic therapy within 30 days of death. This likely reflects efforts to prioritize fitter patients with curative disease for treatment and reduce avoidable healthcare utilization. Future work should focus on understanding the downstream impacts of these differences in care quality on clinical outcomes and optimizing preparedness for future disasters.[Table: see text]