Background: While clinical guidelines for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) provide recommendations on specific individual components of care and advocate multidisciplinary collaboration, guidance on multidisciplinary care spanning the complete patient journey is lacking. Quality-focused recommendations for the multidisciplinary team, along with selected clinical criteria for ideal NSCLC care, were compiled, and a new set of metrics encompassing the entire care continuum was proposed. These metrics were used to set a new benchmark for ideal NSCLC care through the Association of Community Cancer Centers’ (ACCC) national quality care initiative for patients with advanced (stage III/IV) NSCLC. Methods: The ACCC convened an expert steering committee of multidisciplinary specialists and representation from patient advocacy, who identified and compiled evidence-based recommendations via a systematic search of clinical and quality care guidelines and peer-reviewed journals. Ideal quality recommendations were organized within key care areas of the patient journey: care coordination, diagnosis, and treatment. Results: A total of 32 recommendations were included. Of these, 9 were key unpublished recommendations on NSCLC care, including diagnosis and biomarker testing, treatment planning, care coordination, and patient education (Table). Conclusions: These recommendations define the criteria for ideal NSCLC care and serve as a valuable resource to guide multidisciplinary practice and quality improvement initiatives.

^*This is now reflected in the NCCN Guidelines for NSCLC (Version 2.2020). MDT, multidisciplinary team; NCCN, National Comprehensive Cancer Network; NSCLC, non-small cell lung cancer