Comparison of data elements in guidelines developed independently in community hospital oncology programs.
In summary we would like to thank the communities that participated in this study. A comparison of data elements in the guidelines developed by these communities demonstrated similarity in areas of diagnosis, pretreatment evaluation and staging. In the area of treatment it was apparent that physicians writing these guidelines were less autocratic in that more flexibility, more options and less specificity in recommendations was found. That this is not necessarily unfavorable is reflected in the fact that variations existed where the cancer literature is unsettled.
D003153:Community Health Services; D003625:Data Collection; D006764:Hospitals, Community; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000517:prevention & control*; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012041:Regional Medical Programs / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012107:Research Design; D014481:United States