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Backgrounds: Victoria (Australia) and Denmark have comparable population sizes and high‐quality healthcare systems. Lung cancer surgery, however, is performed in more than 20 Victorian hospitals compared to four in Denmark. Such differences in centralization may influence outcomes. We engaged clinical quality registries to enable international benchmarking by exploring patterns of lung cancer surgery including mortality and survival. Methods: All patients undergoing lung cancer surgery between 2015 and 2018 registered in the Victorian Lung Cancer Registry and the Danish Lung Cancer Registry were included. Analyses on stage concordance, 30 and 90‐day mortality, and overall survival were restricted to a selected subgroup with NSCLC and no neo‐adjuvant therapy or metastatic disease and only one operation. Results: We included 1554 Victorian and 4319 Danish patients. The resection rate was 26.3% in Victoria and 28% in Denmark, but a higher proportion of Victorian patients underwent wedge resection (19.1% versus 8.8%). Stage concordance was 59.6% and 54.9% in Victoria and Denmark, respectively. The 30‐ and 90‐day mortality was 1.3% and 2.6% in Victoria, compared to 1.4% and 2.8% in Denmark with no difference in overall survival (p = 0.28) or risk‐adjusted survival (HR: 1.10 (95% CI: 0.89–1.37); p = 0.38). Conclusion: High‐quality surgical lung cancer care was confirmed by similar high resection and low mortality rates including no overall survival difference. The drivers and consequences of stage discordance and differences in patterns of resection deserve further exploration. This study provides a model for international benchmarking using clinical quality registries, although caution remains in the interpretation given disparities in data completeness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bringing virtual environments into cancer support may offer a particular potential to engage patients and increase adherence to treatment. Developing and pilot-testing an online real-time multi-user three-dimensional platform, this study tested the use of an early prototype of the platform among adolescent and young adult cancer patients. Data were collected with an online questionnaire and using ethnographic methods of participant observation. The adolescent and young adult patients tested basic features of the virtual environment and some conducted brief in-world interactions with fellow patients during hospitalization. They had no reservations about using the technology and shared their ideas about its use. Our pilot test pointed to a number of areas of development for virtual environment applications as potential platforms for medical or behavioral interventions in cancer care. Overall, the results demonstrate the need for high user involvement in the development of such interventions and early testing of intervention designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual approaches to health information reduce complexity and may bridge challenges in health literacy. But the mechanisms and meanings of using animated video in communication with patients undergoing surgery are not well described. By comparing two versions of a two-dimensional animated video on spinal anesthesia, this study tested the patient–avatar identification within two different narrative models. To explore the perspectives of total hip arthroplasty, we employed qualitative methods of interviews and ethnographic observation. The animated presentation of the spinal anesthesia procedure was immediately recognized by all participants as reflecting their experience of the procedure independent of the narrative form. The avatar gender did not affect this identification. We found no preference for either narrative form. This study supports the potential of animation video in health informatics as a didactic model for qualifying patient behavior. Animation video creates a high degree of identification that may work to reduce pre-surgical anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]