ArticleJCO oncology practice2024
Characterizing the Traveling Oncology Workforce and Its Influence on Patient Travel Burden: A Claims-Based Approach.
Article in JCO oncology practice, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- A Novel Simulation Framework for Evaluating and Optimizing Oncology Outreach Policies in a Regional Cancer System.Cancer medicine · 2026Article
- Time-Toxicity Indicators and Mitigation Strategies in Cancer Care: A Scoping Review.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Review
- Changes in patient-sharing patterns after oncologist departures in rural and urban settings: a Medicare cohort study.Applied network science · 2026Article
- Patient-centered burdens and economic outcomes among patients who are veterans, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and people living in rural areas and their caregivers: a scoping review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Regionalization of breast cancer surgical care: Moving beyond a one-size-fits-all strategy.Cancer · 2025Article
- Associations Between Oncology Outreach and Patient-Sharing Measures of Care Coordination.Cancer medicine · 2024Article
- The Association Between Oncology Outreach and Timely Treatment for Rural Patients with Breast Cancer: A Claims-Based Approach.Annals of surgical oncology · 2024Article
- Cancer in rural America: Improving access to clinical trials and quality of oncologic care.CA: a cancer journal for cliniciansReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
purposeOncology outreach is a common strategy for extending cancer care to rural patients. However, a nationwide characterization of the traveling workforce that enables this outreach is lacking, and the extent to which outreach reduces travel burden for rural patients is unknown.
methodsThis cross-sectional study analyzed a rural (nonurban) subset of a 100% fee-for-service sample of 355,139 Medicare beneficiaries with incident breast, colorectal, and lung cancers. Surgical, medical, and radiation oncologists were linked to patients using Part B claims, and traveling oncologists were identified by observing hospital service area (HSA) transition patterns. We defined oncology outreach as the provision of cancer care by a traveling oncologist outside of their primary HSA. We used hierarchical gamma regression models to examine the separate associations between patient receipt of oncology outreach and one-way patient travel times to chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery.
resultsOn average, 9,935 of 39,960 oncologists conducted annual outreach, where 57.8% traveled with low frequency (0-1 outreach visits/mo), 21.1% with medium frequency (1-3 outreach visits/mo), and 21.1% with high frequency (>3 outreach visits/mo). Oncologists provided surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy to 51,715, 27,120, and 5,874 rural beneficiaries, respectively, of whom 2.5%, 6.9%, and 3.6% received oncology outreach. Rural patients who received oncology outreach traveled 16% (95% CI, 11 to 21) and 11% (95% CI, 9 to 13) less minutes to chemotherapy and radiotherapy than those who did not receive oncology outreach, corresponding to expected one-way savings of 15.9 (95% CI, 15.5 to 16.4) and 11.9 (95% CI, 11.7 to 12.2) minutes, respectively.
conclusionOur study introduces a novel claims-based approach for tracking the nationwide traveling oncology workforce and supports oncology outreach as an effective means for improving rural access to cancer care.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.