Concordance With The Asco Provisional Clinical Opinion On The Integration Of Palliative Care Into Standard Oncology Care In Ontario

170 Background: In 2012, ASCO released a Provisional Clinical Opinion for patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the need for integration of palliative care services concurrent with standard treatment from the time of diagnosis. To understand if this recommendation is being followed in Ontario, provincial administrative data was used to explore concordance.Various aspects of concordance were considered including: whether and when in the treatment trajectory patients received palliative care, and how much care was received. For Phase 1 of the analysis, a provincial database of outpatient cancer care was used to identify services received within Ontario's regional cancer centers (RCCs) and select partner hospitals. The Ontario Cancer Registry and Staging databases were used to identify the patient cohort. The cohort included patients diagnosed with stage IV NSCLC between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013.Phase 1 results indicate that 41% of patients received palliative and/or psychosocial oncology care at the RCC or partner hospital after diagnosis. Those receiving palliative care first received services an average of 148 days after diagnosis. See Table below for detailed results.A growing body of literature has identified the benefits of concurrent palliative care. Knowing whether these services are being provided for the NSCLC population is a promising start to understanding and improving the delivery of palliative care in Ontario. Initial results suggest that there is a need for quality improvement in this area. Future phases will expand the analysis to include services received in additional settings such as hospitals and community. [Table: see text].