ArticleBMC health services research2021
The impact of public performance reporting on cancer elective surgery waiting times: a data linkage study.
Article in BMC health services research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Redefining treatment interval in lung cancer surgery in the era of prehabilitation: a systematic review.Translational lung cancer research · 2025Review
- Factors associated with diagnostic and treatment intervals in colorectal cancer: A linked data study.International journal of cancer · 2025Article
- Waiting Time for Breast Cancer Treatment in Korea: A Nationwide Cohort Study.Journal of breast cancer · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundExcessive waiting times for cancer elective surgery are a concern in publicly funded healthcare systems. Several countries including Australia have introduced healthcare reforms involving time-based targets and public performance reporting (PPR) of hospital data. However, there is mixed evidence of their benefits. We sought to examine the impact of targets and PPR of cancer elective surgery waiting times on access to breast, bowel and lung cancer elective surgery.
methodsWe analysed routinely-collected linked data on admissions and waiting times for patients aged 15 years or over (n = 199,885) who underwent cancer surgery in a public hospital in Victoria, Australia over a 10-year period. We conducted difference-in-differences analyses to compare waiting times before (2006-07 to 2011-12) and after (2012-13 to 2015-16) the introduction of PPR in meeting these targets.
resultsAcross all cancer types, urgent patients were all treated within 30 days before and after PPR. Following PPR, there was a slight increase in the mean waiting times across all cancer types and urgency categories. Patients with lung cancer waited on average two and half days longer for treatment and patients with breast cancer waited on average half-a-day less. There was no effect of PPR on waiting times for patients with bowel cancer across urgency categories.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that time-based targets and PPR had minimal impact on surgical waiting times. This may be due to reasonable waiting times prior to PPR, improved efficiency being masked by 20% growth in the population, lack of public knowledge that waiting times are publicly reported, or lack of real-time reporting to drive behavioural change. The use of generic elective surgery recommended waiting time measures for cancer is discussed.
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