July 2022 Newsletter

Save the date for our upcoming educational webinar, Data Quality: The 5 Ws and an H. This one hour webinar will be presented by Amy Arnold, BA, CTR, Manager, Strategic Services at ERS, and Sherri Chico-Rowell, CTR, Client Advocate Specialist at ERS.

The webinar is at 1 pm EST on Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022 with an encore presentation at 1 pm EST on Thursday, Aug 4, 2022, and will discuss the importance of quality data to the registry, explore who should provide quality review of registry data and discuss best practices for quality review, including methods and timing.

Invitations will be emailed to clients on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. This webinar has been approved for 1 CEU by NCRA.

Our Cancer Center Showcase series continues with Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center located in Winston-Salem, NC. The medical center is affiliated with Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Health System is renowned for its clinical expertise with the medical school is recognized nationally for its exceptional education and patient-centered research.

Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has seen many changes throughout the years. It began as North Carolina Baptist Hospital in 1923 as an 88-bed hospital. In 1941, the hospital became affiliated with the Wake Forest School of Medicine, formerly Bowman Gray School of Medicine. In 2021, the medical center was acquired by Atrium Health in Charlotte, NC.

Today, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is comprised of five facilities and accessions approximately 5,000 cases annually. The cancer registry moved from the medical record department in 2008 to the oncology service line. There are 11 full time staff employees who work 100% remote. When asked to share comments about the staff, Cancer Registry Manager Inez Inman, BS, RHIT (Ret), CTR, states that the staff are fabulous and extremely hard working as well as exceptional people! 

Discussions began at the medical center to form a cancer registry in 1958. The exact date it was formed is unknown. The cancer center became CoC accredited in 1978 ...

Although node-positive solid tumor malignancies frequently mandate adjuvant chemotherapy usage, the debate regarding Stage II (node negative) colon cancer continues to be ongoing relating to this issue. Medical oncologists have a variety of differing views as to whether additional chemotherapy should be offered after colectomy.

While nodal status is an important indicator that is captured in our cancer registries, other markers may be equally or more significant as guides for applying additional therapy after colectomy. For instance, the presence of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) after surgery predicts very poor recurrence-free survival, whereas its absence predicts a low risk of recurrence. The benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy for ctDNA-positive patients is not well understood, but may play an important role in the future.

In the AJCC Cancer Staging Manual, Eighth Edition, the descriptor “cM0(i+)” was introduced to help capture the presence of both circulating cancer cells and ctDNA. While currently a minority of patients with colon cancer, as well as other malignancies are being evaluated for these occult findings, our registries must include these critical predictors if available. Our cancer registrars must be alert to these findings and their importance in cancer management. A ctDNA-guided approach to adjuvant treatment in cancer patients may give valuable additional information in the management of patients with Stage II colon cancer as well as other node-negative malignancies.

Cancer registry data can provide valuable insights across the oncology service line. The data can be especially helpful in guiding the cancer program’s strategic direction by looking at referral patterns to identify staffing needs, additional facility planning and capital equipment needs. This can be extremely

beneficial in cancer center growth and patient retention.

Incidence reporting by site and many of the variables collected in the cancer registry can help the cancer program identify community needs by identifying patient disparities and can also be used to reveal increases and decreases in revenue and help control cancer center costs.

In and out migration patterns can provide insight as to why patients are going out of network to receive their care. Cancer center resources can be adjusted with the information provided to aid in budgetary planning and provide justification for additional resource needs.

As cancer registrars and very valuable members of the oncology program, we should promote the value of the data we collect. Shown are just a few examples of reports that can easily be generated in CRStar to provide valuable insight for your cancer program’s financial and strategic analysis.

The latest episode of the Cancer Registry World podcast featuring guest Rohit Nayak, CEO of ERS, Inc. is available now! Rohit joins Dr. Frederick L. Greene, CMO, to discuss his journey into the world of cancer registry software and looks to the future as new technology is planned to enhance the work of cancer registrars and the increasing ability of cancer registries to collect critical data that are relevant to all cancer patients.

Previous episodes with guests Mellisa Wheeler, Director of Community Outreach at Atrium Health Levine Cancer Institute, Lillie D. Shockney, Co-Founder of AONN+, and NCRA President, Karen Mason, are still available on our website or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, including ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and TuneIn.

Is your state looking for speakers for it's fall conference? State cancer registry associations are in the planning stages of fall educational conferences and we would love to help!

Choose from topics including Edit Enlightenment: Conquering GenEdits and Metafiles, 100 Years of the Commission on Cancer: Implications for Cancer Registrars and Registries, and Automated Data Exchange: Approaches to Revitalize your Cancer Registry. Or our speakers can customize a topic just for your organization, such as cancer site specific topics. Our speakers can present virtually or in person at your conference, meeting, educational session and more!

Here are some upcoming state meetings where our speakers will be presenting:

• FCRA (Florida) - Rick Greene - ERS is also sponsoring the Zoom platform!
• ANCCR (North Carolina) - Melanie Rogan, Todd Carter & Jon Patrick
• ACRA (Alabama) - Rick Greene & Jonathan Rakestraw
• TODAA (Tennessee) - Melanie Rogan
• MiCRA (Michigan) - Rick Greene & Melanie Rogan

Spam email is the most common form of access breach in our industry. The main reason is that spam emails provide a huge shortcut for hackers to gain access to valuable data. Instead of hackers having to find a honey pot of data and a way to access it, these hackers leverage you, the gatekeeper of the data, to help them get what they want.

It’s true that many spam emails originate oversees and many of these hackers (who are not so knowledgeable of the American language) make noticeable grammatical mistakes. They also arrange words and sentences in ways that we do not commonly see in most of our business communication. These types of spam emails tend to be easy catches for most of us. But what about spam that is well written and focuses on activities that you perform on a daily basis? How do you catch the spam emails written by a pro hacker?

Here are a couple of tips:

• Don’t assume the authenticity of anyone unfamiliar, particularly if they appear to have a prestigious title. Hackers often like to pretend they are someone of importance to get a reflex compliance response.
• Don’t allow someone who is unfamiliar redefine what your security actions should or should not be. All authority should follow a chain of command from a source you are familiar with.
• When a familiar coworker emails you to perform an unfamiliar task, verify the content of the email with that coworker by phone if possible.
• Phishing does not have to be an email. It can be a text or a phone call. The same safety rules apply no matter what the source is.
• If there is any level of uncertainly, ask and verify before responding.

Be aware. Be consistent. And lock it up.

Do you love CRStar?

So do we and we are offering our loyal customers the chance to earn a $200 gift card when a Cancer Program that you refer becomes an ERS customer!

Please click "Refer CRStar" below if you know of any Cancer Programs that could benefit from CRStar and the advantages that CRStar users enjoy and rely on.

Let's grow our CRStar community together!

Terms and conditions can be found on the CRStar Referral Form.

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