What is Real-Time in Cancer Care?
How do you define real-time data in cancer care? Across oncology, “real-time” data is increasingly defined not by a specific number of minutes or hours, but by its ability to meaningfully inform current clinical or quality decisions. NAACCR’s Real-Time Reporting Taskforce distinguished true real-time processing as “…data captured and available essentially as events occur…” from […]
Closing Casefinding Gaps in Leukemia, Lymphoma and Multiple Myeloma
Automation sees what routine workflows miss. Real-time data turns “negative” into knowledge. The American Cancer Society projects 2,041,910 new cancer diagnoses in 2025, with hematologic malignancies accounting for 9.5% of all leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma cases. Roughly two-thirds of these patients will undergo a bone marrow aspirate biopsy as part of staging or diagnosis. Yet, […]
Symptoms Tell a Story
Myelofibrosis begins quietly. Your case finding practice makes a difference. Primary myelofibrosis often begins quietly — fatigue, anemia, maybe a larger spleen — until it becomes a diagnosis hidden in plain sight. For Oncology Data Specialists, catching those early signals in the record can mean the difference between “missed” and “found.” Spotlight on Myelofibrosis – […]
Close the Gap: Bladder Cancer
A symptom may be the first red flag.Bladder cancers often hide in plain sight. Bladder cancer cases surface from the inpatient and outpatient settings, each telling a story that pathology alone cannot capture. When casefinding workflows depend only on positive pathology, clinically diagnosed or recurrent cases are easily overlooked. Each omission distorts the cancer registry’s accuracy […]
Close the Gap
You can’t manage what you don’t count.Missed cases silently erode credibility and performance. Hospitals feel the financial and operational drag of delayed or missed case reporting long before it shows up in dashboards. The rationale, backed by research, is simple: every missed case requires extra work, delays reporting, and weakens quality, treatment outcomes, and value-based […]
Case Finding is the Foundation
Finding EVERY cancer case is not optional.It is foundational to cancer program integrity. Casefinding is not just a cancer registry workflow. It is the foundation of every cancer program quality measure, accreditation, and KPI. Without it, the cancer registry is not only under-performing but puts the hospital credibility at risk. Every case matters and cancer […]
Cancer Registry Data Stewardship
Cancer Registry data curation isn’t extra.Good stewardship drives change. Cancer registrars have always shouldered the responsibility of abstracting data, but the role now demands more. In this series, we’ve shown how registrars can move beyond manual tasks to become curators of real-time, accurate, and actionable data. The final step in this transformation is stewardship. Stewardship […]How Will You Reshape Your Role as an ODS?
Where do you focus your energy?What’s your secret? Socrates said “the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” His wisdom is still relevant today and to Oncology Data Specialists (cancer registrars)! Yesterday a fellow ODS shared their wisdom on a recent post […]