Regional variation in breast cancer treatment in the Netherlands and the role of external peer review: a cohort study comprising 63516 women

摘要

BackgroundTreatment variation is an important issue in health care provision. An external peer review programme for multidisciplinary cancer care was introduced in 1994 in the Netherlands to improve the multidisciplinary organisation of cancer care in hospitals.So far the clinical impact of external quality assessment programmes such as external peer review and accreditation remains unclear. Our objective was to examine the degree of variation in treatment patterns and the possible effect of external peer review for multidisciplinary cancer care for breast cancer patients.