Quality Initiative to Improve Timeliness of Care in a Rapid Assessment Lung Cancer Clinic

Australian and international guidelines recommend patients with suspected lung cancer be reviewed by a specialist within 14 days, and commence lung cancer treatment within 42 days from referral (Cancer Council Australia, 2020). We established a Rapid Lung Assessment Clinic (RLAC) in 2018, located in the Cancer Therapy Centre of an academic university hospital, to fast-track patients with suspected lung malignancy. In the first 15 months of operation we found delays to diagnosis and treatment were associated with the number of diagnostic tests and clinic visits (Dabholkar et al., 2021).