Hospital Accreditation and Geographic Disparities in Timely Cancer Care

To evaluate whether the association between receiving care at an accredited hospital and timely treatment initiation varies by county income level.

This cross-sectional study compared days from diagnosis to treatment initiation among patients receiving care at CoC-accredited hospitals with patients receiving care at non-accredited hospitals. We estimated distributional effects with a quantile regression model. We stratified patients into low (median household-income < 80k) and high-income (median household-income ≥ 80k) counties.

We analyzed population-based Surveillance, Epidemiological, and End Results case data (2018-2021). We excluded cancer cases that did not receive treatment. All analyses were adjusted for tumor and patient characteristics, treatment received, and geographic factors.

Among 2,107,188 patients receiving cancer treatment, 73.65% received care at an accredited hospital. Median time-to-treatment was 27 days (interquartile range = 1-52). Care at an accredited hospital was associated with longer median time-to-treatment (+2.6 days) in low-income counties but not high-income counties. Similarly, care at an accredited hospital was associated with widening the time-to-treatment interquartile range (+1.8 days) in low-income but not high-income counties. The magnitude of these associations was highest in patients aged 65+, unmarried, diagnosed at an early stage, and in less common cancers. Only among patients diagnosed with distant-stage cancer was accreditation associated with reduced median time-to-treatment in both low and high-income counties.

Treatment at an accredited hospital appeared to increase time-to-treatment differences between high-and low-income counties and low-income counties. This heterogeneity may reflect access challenges facing low-income cancer patients. Health systems seeking to provide high quality, timely care must overcome these access challenges as they navigate patients through the cancer care continuum. While a 2.6-day delay in treatment may not impact outcomes, future research should understand why patients from lower-resource communities wait longer than patients in affluent communities.