As healthcare organizations prioritize data-driven care, investing in advanced analytics and effectively leveraging cancer registries will be key to driving meaningful improvements in cancer treatment and patient outcomes.
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There’s no greater challenge in healthcare than improving patient outcomes. Clinical registries serve as essential tools in this endeavor. They help clinical, operational, and financial leaders objectively measure and enhance performance and achieve and sustain true healthcare improvements through high-quality data.
Health systems use clinical registries to systematically gather information about patients with shared conditions or treatments. Cancer registries stand out as the gold standard for comprehensive patient data collection among clinical registries, providing vital insights that drive improvements in care and outcomes.
Cancer registries are comprehensive databases that track cancer diagnoses, treatment trends, and patient outcomes. They help clinicians refine practices and identify the most effective approaches, providing data on risk factors, biomarkers, and new treatments.
More broadly, cancer registries help to:
Cancer registries and Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Result (SEER) data have been instrumental in understanding the evolution of cancer diagnoses and treatments over time, contributing to key discoveries. A notable example is the 2024 FDA approval of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) for advanced melanoma and T-cell receptor therapy (TCR) for metastatic synovial sarcoma—a discovery that enhances the immune system's ability to fight cancer.
Typically, cancer registries serve as core datasets that include patient demographics, cancer identification, and cancer staging. They can also include supplemental data from tumor boards, clinical trials, patient navigation, and quality assurance.
Cancer registries aim to comprehensively capture all cancer cases within a population while ensuring accurate, standardized data across key fields such as diagnosis, stage, treatment, and outcomes. Thanks to its granularity, cancer registry data can also support administrative, financial, and information technology departments.
Cancer registrars collect patient data and submit it to each state's central cancer registry and the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB). Jointly managed by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer and the American Cancer Society, the NCDB aims to capture data that drive improvements in patient outcomes.
However, making meaningful use of cancer registry data isn’t always easy or practical. A key barrier is that hospital administrators often underestimate the value their registries offer. This disconnect often stems from the following:
In addition, many are unaware of the hospitals' efforts to collect and submit data to registries and the benefits of that participation.
Some institutions view registry participation merely as a regulatory requirement or a means to achieve accreditation rather than an opportunity to enhance patient care. Furthermore, while healthcare leaders and administrators understand the importance of high-quality data, they may lack the skills to leverage cancer registry data to obtain accurate insights that inform decisions.
Healthcare leaders must know that the purpose of collecting and submitting cancer registry data is to fundamentally improve the underlying care it represents. Participating in these registries can help them realize a return on investment, as the registry illuminates areas of necessary improvement.
Bridging the gap between data collection and meaningful application—to drive quality improvements— involves integrating data from disparate sources, breaking down silos, ensuring data accuracy, and adhering to strict privacy and regulatory standards. Cancer registry solutions are designed to achieve this goal.
By improving data quality input through cancer registries, institutions can achieve more accurate analyses and better assess their performance in improving care and patient outcomes.
Integrating innovative tools is transforming how stakeholders manage and analyze cancer registry data. For instance, generative AI is proving valuable for health systems, enhancing data accuracy while significantly lowering data collection costs. By automating repetitive tasks with greater precision, generative AI helps reduce medical errors, cut expenses, and support early diagnosis and intervention.
Generative AI is also improving traditional methods of chart abstraction, which are labor-intensive and mentally exhausting for healthcare professionals who must sift through the EMR to gather necessary data for registries.
Advanced solutions expedite this process by automating data ingestion, which reduces the need for clinical personnel to gather information manually from multiple sources. By streamlining data extraction—especially from free-text or unstructured notes—healthcare providers can conserve energy for more impactful healthcare improvement activities.
The industry is committed to continuously improving the use of registry data, ensuring it remains accurate, secure, and valuable for advancing research and patient outcomes.
Recently, The Joint Commission introduced a new certification program to promote the responsible use of healthcare data, including cancer registry information. This program evaluates how institutions utilize their data to improve care and encourages healthcare leaders and administrators to leverage their data for better clinical outcomes. Such oversight has the potential to enhance the collection and quality of cancer registry data.
In conclusion, a health system’s cancer registry can serve as a catalyst for future advancements by maximizing data utilization, implementing AI and advanced analytics for actionable insights, and ensuring that data collection leads to improved patient outcomes. Healthcare leaders can pave the way forward by moving beyond passive data collection, investing in intelligent technologies, and committing to using cancer registry data as a powerful agent of change.
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Enhancing Healthcare with Clinical Registry Insights
How Clinicians Derive Better Insights with Quality Data Registries
Unlocking High-Value Healthcare Data Analytics: Debunking 5 EHR Myths
