High-quality care for all children with cancer.
BACKGROUND
Providing high-quality care for children with cancer could improve treatment outcomes, survival and quality of life of the children and parents. The aim of this study is to select high-quality care recommendations for all children with cancer based on literature and consensus for future development of quality indicators.


METHODS
We performed an extensive search in databases for scientific literature and in websites of international health care and guideline development organizations to create an inventory of recommendations for the care for all children with cancer. The RAND modified Delphi method was used to grade and select recommendations for high-quality care.


RESULTS
Our search resulted in a list of 131 recommendations on care for all children with cancer. The expert panel graded, discussed and prioritized these recommendations. Analysis of these ratings resulted ultimately in a list of 109 high-quality care recommendations for all children with cancer, including 31 prioritized recommendations.


CONCLUSIONS
This study defines a set of high-quality care recommendations based on literature and consensus. These recommendations provide a basis for the development of a comprehensive set of quality indicators to evaluate care in paediatric oncology.
Department of Paediatric Oncology, Emma Children's Hospital/Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam. r.r.knops@amc.uva.nl
R R G
RR
Knops
M E J L
ME
Hulscher
R P M G
RP
Hermens
M
M
Hilbink-Smolders
J L
JL
Loeffen
W J W
WJ
Kollen
G J L
GJ
Kaspers
H N
HN
Caron
L C M
LC
Kremer
D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires