title: Improving the quality of cancer care in America through health information technology.
abstract: A recent report from the Institute of Medicine titled Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis, identifies improvement in information technology (IT) as essential to improving the quality of cancer care in America. The report calls for implementation of a learning healthcare IT system: a system that supports patient-clinician interactions by providing patients and clinicians with the information and tools necessary to make well informed medical decisions and to support quality measurement and improvement. While some elements needed for a learning healthcare system are already in place for cancer, they are incompletely implemented, have functional deficiencies, and are not integrated in a way that creates a true learning healthcare system. To achieve the goal of a learning cancer care delivery system, clinicians, professional organizations, government, and the IT industry will have to partner, develop, and incentivize participation.
authors.affiliation: The Institute for Cancer Care Innovation, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Thomas W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Feeley
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA.
authors.forename: George W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Sledge
authors.affiliation: National Cancer Policy Forum, The Institute of Medicine, Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Levit
authors.affiliation: Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA Schools of Medicine and Public Health, Los Angeles, California, USA.
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Ganz
mesh_terms: D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems; D008490:Medical Informatics; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States
keywords: Cancer; Information technology; Learning healthcare system