National Program of Cancer Registries - Advancing E-Cancer Reporting and Registry Operations (NPCR-AERRO): An Update On Innovative Activities

National Program of Cancer Registries - Advancing E-Cancer Reporting and Registry Operations (NPCR-AERRO): An Update on Innovative Activities. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Program of Cancer Registries-Advancing E-Cancer Reporting and Registry Operations (NPCR-AERRO) is a collaborative effort to position the cancer surveillance community to take advantage of the electronic health record (EHR) for cancer surveillance. The goal of NPCR-AERRO is to enhance the completeness, timeliness, and quality of cancer data through the automated capture of electronically available data. Over the past several years, NPCR-AERRO has engaged the cancer community (e.g., hospital and central cancer registry (CCR) registrars, epidemiologist/statisticians, data managers/IT, program managers, software vendors, and standard-setters within national and international programs) to develop best practices, guidelines, and recommendations for an ideal cancer surveillance informatics infrastructure that takes advantage of emerging health information technology and national and international standards for the hospital and CCR domains. The consensus models have been instrumental in identifying areas that would benefit from the implementation of system automation and electronic reporting in cancer registry operations. The models describe best practices using descriptive and diagrammatic methods and tools. NPCR-AERRO relies on standard information technology tools and processes including Unified Modeling Language (UML) and the CDC Unified Process (CDC UP) to develop models, requirements, and implementation products, and to manage the project as a whole. NPCR-AERRO has completed analysis/design activities for several modeled components and is currently implementing some of these components into registry operations and software. Overall, NPCR-AERRO can demonstrate how the EHR, consensus standards, electronic reporting and automation improves the timeliness, completeness and quality of cancer registry data. This presentation will provide information on methods used, results of completed analysis, design, and implementation activities, and a preview of future planned activities.