Home  |  About the Book  |  Table of Contents  |  Search  |  Archive  |  Order  |  Visit JCO  |  Visit ASCO.org
ASCO Educational Book; 2008
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Purchase Article
Right arrow View Shopping Cart
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar content in this book
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRights & Permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Jacobson, J. O.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Jacobson, J. O.

The Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI): An Important Tool for Measuring Quality and Improving Care

Joseph O. Jacobson, MD

From the North Shore Medical Center Cancer Center, Peabody, Massachusetts

Author's disclosure of potential conflicts of interest is found at the end of this article.

Address reprint requests to Joseph O. Jacobson, MD, North Shore Medical Center Cancer Center, 17 Centennial Drive, Peabody, MA 01960; e-mail: jjacobson{at}partners.org

Overview: As has already occurred in health care organizations, individual physicians and practices will soon be held accountable for providing measurable high-quality care. Several physician specialty societies have stepped forward to create performance measures and mechanisms for collecting, analyzing, and reporting data, preferring to preempt insurers and regulators. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) is a physician-led voluntary program for measuring practice quality, while providing practices with semiannual practice-specific and comparative data. QOPI became available to all ASCO members in January 2006. Practices agree to participate in at least two semiannual rounds of data collection and to submit de-identified data to a secure ASCO website. Early results confirm the feasibility of a voluntary program for practice improvement in oncology. Three hundred thirteen practices are enrolled in QOPI, and 145 practices successfully completed the fall 2007 data collection. QOPI data show moderately high rates of adherence to ASCO and National Comprehensive Cancer Network clinical practice guideline recommendations for the care of patients with breast and colorectal cancer, confirming previous ASCO results obtained by the National Initiative for Cancer Care Quality. Other measures, including those related to end-of-life care, have lower adherence rates and wide variability is present in many measures. An "improvement tools" library is being designed to assist practices in quality initiatives. The QOPI Health Plan Program, in which practices may request that ASCO provide authentication of successful QOPI participation, was recently established. QOPI is an important new program for measuring cancer care quality.