Fast-track notification of cancer to the Victorian Cancer Registry: Using E-Path to provide timely cancer statistics | Professor Sue Evans
Transmitting pathology data in near real-time from pathology laboratories across Victoria, and how artificial intelligence is being used to extract core information from these reports, to enhance the dataset captured by the Victorian Cancer Registry (VCR).
PROFESSOR SUE EVANS
Director, Victorian Cancer Registry
Cancer Council Victoria
E-Path was introduced in Victoria in 2016 and has been progressively rolled out across pathology laboratories in Victoria. Currently, 94% of all pathology is transmitted through E-Path. The VCR uses these feeds to provide near real-time statistical reporting on cancer activity in Victoria. This information has informed the VCCC/MPCCC COVID-19 Taskforce and government as it indicates cancer pathology activity.
In August 2020, VCR will implement Abrevio into the production environment of the VCR. Abrevio provide unprecedented ability in Victoria to extract cost data from freetext fields in the pathology report. It enables VCR to capture 100 data points not previously captured. The impact for future research using VCR data is considerable, as it our ability to fast-track patients to clinical trials. The success of these projects has prompted us to consider whether a similar methodology can be applied to free rich data from imaging reports.
Professor Evans will discuss how the VCR captures and uses data to report cancer statistics in Victoria and to make available to researchers across Victoria.
Professor Sue Evans is an epidemiologist and public health researcher. For the past ten years her focus has been on developing clinical quality registries to provide a rich dataset from which to measure quality of care. She has led the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry-Australia and New Zealand and the Clinical Registry program at Monash University.
More recently, Professor Evans has taken up the role of Director of the VCR. In this role she oversees capture, coding, storage and dissemination of cancer data in Victoria and works with national and international cancer and government agencies to improve capture of a standardised cancer dataset.
Prof Evans is keen to ensure that data are used responsibly and actively to measure and improve the quality of care provided to patients diagnosed with cancer.