New Tools for Lung Cancer Screening

Have you checked out the two new LCSR measures? LCSR participants can now track the percentage of patients with a Lung-RADS® score of 1 or 2 who are returning for their annual screening exam. While the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual lung cancer screening for eligible patients, the patient adherence rate for annual screening remains low.

In addition, LCSR facilities can also track the overall smoking cessation rate of patients enrolled in their lung cancer screening (LCS) programs to help determine if smoking cessation programs within the health system or local community are helping patients quit smoking.

These two new measures are included in both the interactive Facility Comparisons Report and the LCSR Quarterly Aggregate Report.

LCSR participants can now access performance improvement (PI) reports developed with guidance from the LCSR Quality Improvement and Education (QED) subcommittee, comprised of thoracic radiologists and LCS program administrators. The PI Analysis Report (a tab in the Facility Comparisons Report) allows you dive into performance details — by corporate account or individual facilities — for three measures:

• Adherence to annual screening.
• Radiation exposure (CTDIvol).
• Non-smoking rate.

You can use the report to help identify opportunities for improvement.

The new PI Assessment Report (also a tab in the Facility Comparisons Report) provides LCS programs that undertake an improvement initiative with insight into how interventions they employ result in improved performance. The report enables comparing performance data at baseline (prior to initiating improvement interventions) to post-intervention (after waiting for interventions to take effect) and monitoring if improvements are sustained over time.

Read more about the PI Analysis Report and the PI Assessment Report for the improving adherence to annual screening and achieving appropriate radiation dose.

Starting an improvement project can be challenging. To address start-up challenges, the QED subcommittee developed improvement tools and materials to help facilities proceed with improvement efforts. For each measure, these materials include a project rationale, instructions on reviewing data and guidance to implement interventions for improvement.

How can you learn more? Read the Knowledge Base article in the NRDR Support Portal: LCSR Performance Improvement Overview.

Updated videos are now available to help you navigate the LCSR interactive reports. The four videos cover:

1. Facility Peer Comparisons: Interpret summary and facility metrics, and gain insight about peer comparisons.
2. Annual Trends: Understand the annual rankings table and drill down to measure trends.
3. Measure Calculations: Gain an overview of measure calculations with several examples.
4. Peer Rankings: Learn how quartiles are calculated and used for peer rankings.