Cancer services performance indicator (CSPI) audits
Victoria’s cancer services performance indicator (CSPI) program was established by the Department of Health in 2007 to measure and monitor alignment with Victorian Government policy.
The program’s 4 key priorities for reform are a focus for service improvement at the VICS and statewide levels:
- multidisciplinary care
- care coordination across the cancer care pathway
- supportive care
- reducing unwarranted variation in practice.
The VICS conduct regular CSPI audits within the patient medical record at our member health services, in collaboration with the Department of Health. Each audit examines more than 3200 patient medical records across Victoria. The information we collect is used to guide service improvement activities across each Integrated Cancer Service (ICS) region. As many of the indicators assessed remain consistent across each audit year, longitudinal results can also be used to track ongoing performance within the region, and across each of our member health services.
Audits of cancer care routinely collect data on each health service’s documented evidence of:
- multidisciplinary team meeting (MDM) recommendations
- cancer staging in MDM recommendations
- patient Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status in the MDM recommendations
- communication of the initial treatment plan to the person’s general practitioner (GP)
- supportive care screening.
The CSPI program is one of several cancer services performance monitoring programs. Others include the Victorian Cancer Experience Survey, the Statewide Cancer Indicator Platform (SCIP), the VICS Optimal Care Summits program, and other audits such as alignment of practice to the multidisciplinary meeting (MDM) quality framework (2019).