Population Health Informatics Can Advance Interoperability: National Program of Cancer Registries Electronic Pathology Reporting Project

Abstract

PURPOSE Given the reach, breadth, and volume of data collected from multiple clinical settings and systems, US central cancer registries (CCRs) are uniquely positioned to test and advance cancer health information exchange. This article describes a current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) cancer informatics data exchange initiative. METHODS CDC is using an established cloud-based platform developed by the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) for national notifiable disease reporting to enable direct transmission of standardized electronic pathology (ePath) data from laboratories to CCRs in multiple states. RESULTS The APHL Informatics Messaging Services (AIMS) Platform provides an infrastructure to enable a large national laboratory to submit data to a single platform. State health departments receive data from the AIMS Platform through a secure portal, eliminating separate data exchange routes with each CCR. CONCLUSION Key factors enabling ePath data exchange from laboratories to CCRs are having established cancer registry data standards and using a single platform/portal to reduce data streams. NPCR plans to expand this approach in alignment with ongoing cancer informatics efforts in clinical settings. The 50 CCRs supported by NPCR provide a variety of scenarios to develop and disseminate cancer data informatics initiatives and have tremendous potential to increase the implementation of cancer data exchange.

College of American Pathologists Cancer Protocols: From Optimizing Cancer Patient Care to Facilitating Interoperable Reporting and Downstream Data Use

“…The collective work toward the development and implementation of standardized structured reporting (SSR) across laboratories and health systems shares a goal of automated, direct transmission of cancer case data to centralized cancer registries. 20 Activities include reconciling clinical cancer reporting with cancer registry data collection standards, cooperative work on metric development and measurement for cancer reporting from laboratories to registries, promotion of use of technical standards such as SDC for more automated transmission of cancer report data to registries, and alignment on biomarker and other key data capture components.…”

Consensus-based framework for evaluating data modernization initiatives: the case of cancer registration and electronic reporting

“…Current modernization efforts are focused on increasing automation in transferring and processing data, with the overall goal of providing timely data for decision-making. 5 , 7 …”