The impact of organisational external peer review on colorectal cancer treatment and survival in the Netherlands

Background: Organisational external peer review was introduced in 1994 in the Netherlands to improve multidisciplinary cancer care. We examined the clinical impact of this programme on colorectal cancer care. Methods: Patients with primary colorectal cancer were included from 23 participating hospitals and 7 controls. Hospitals from the intervention group were dichotomised by their implementation proportion (IP) of the recommendations from each peer review (high IP vs low IP). Outcome measures were the introduction of new multidisciplinary therapies and survival. Results: In total, 45 705 pati... Mehr ...