ArticleJournal of the American College of Surgeons2026
Patient Preferences for Cancer Care Within Hub-and-Spoke Networks: A Discrete Choice Experiment.
Article in Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Invited Commentary: Capturing the Patient Perspective: The Missing Voice in the World of Hospital Expansion.Journal of the American College of Surgeons · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHub-and-spoke cancer networks are increasingly used to extend specialty expertise to rural populations; however, patient preferences for how surgical and nonsurgical cancer care should be delivered within these networks are poorly defined. We quantified rural patient preferences and identified distinct preference phenotypes to inform network design. STUDY
designA cross-sectional discrete choice experiment was administered to adult patients at a rural primary care clinic affiliated with an academic cancer center (November 2023 to May 2024). Respondents completed 30 forced-choice tasks evaluating trade-offs among travel time, provider specialization, visit type (in-person vs telemedicine), expert case review (direct, tumor board, or quality oversight), and surgical team experience. Effects-coded conditional logit models generated preference weights. Latent class analysis segmented respondents into preference phenotypes.
resultsAmong 171 respondents (median age 52 years; 43% Black or people of color), surgical team experience (34%) and surgeon specialization (25%) were most important for surgical care. Fifty-three percent of respondents prioritized a specialist surgeon and a high-volume team and were willing to travel; 39% prioritized in-person visits and accepted indirect case review; and 8% prioritized limiting travel. For nonsurgical care, visit type (35%), travel (27%), and provider type (27%) were the most important factors. Four phenotypes emerged: preference for specialist oncologist (29%), direct expert review (28%), in-person visits (28%), and limiting travel (18%).
conclusionsRural patients exhibit heterogeneous and treatment-specific preference phenotypes within hub-and-spoke cancer networks. Preference elicitation may enable networks to align specialist deployment, telemedicine infrastructure, multidisciplinary case review, and resource allocation with patient priorities.
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