December 2022 Newsletter

As we approach this holiday season, ERS would like to extend our warmest wishes to you and yours. It goes without saying that you are the reason for our being. We would not be here without your support and investment in CRStar.

We appreciate and value your engagements and partnerships and look forward to continuing those partnerships in 2023!

One of the very “high tech” surgical procedures introduced over the last several decades, but gaining more importance in the last few years is Cytoreductive Surgery with the addition of Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (CRS-HIPEC). This approach has been used for treating intraperitoneal metastases resulting from ovarian, gastrointestinal and a variety of less common cancers. The concept of adding intraperitoneal chemotherapy after reducing obvious gross metastatic implants is based on the theory that the peritoneal/plasma barrier allows for high doses of drug, peritoneal clearance is less than systemic clearance and systemic toxicities may be reduced because of poor systemic absorption.



Recent clinical trials using CRS-HIPEC in managing colon cancer (Lancet Oncology, 2021) showed that complete cytoreduction alone may be as beneficial as adding an intraperitoneal instillation of chemotherapy. Most centers offering CRS-HIPEC are using tumor reduction and different chemotherapy regimens from those used in this trial. The important message for registrars is that this lengthy and involved surgical approach may be ongoing in your hospital where surgeons have been trained using this technique. These cases must be captured correctly by our registries using specific surgical codes to allow for outcomes of CRS-HIPEC to be assessed in the future.

As you know, SEER updates the casefinding lists annually. Casefinding lists are intended for searching a variety of cases in an effort not to miss any reportable cases seen at your facility(s).

The button below provides access to information regarding the current ICD-10-CM Casefinding List 2023. This list is effective 10/1/2022 - 09/30/2023.

The list of diagnosis codes needs to be reviewed and compared to your CRStar import configuration settings (manual/automation) for accuracy. If you need assistance, we encourage you to open a support ticket and one of our Client Advocates will be happy to help.

Our Cancer Center Showcase continues this month with Blount Memorial Cancer Center located in Maryville, TN, on the campus of Blount Memorial Hospital. The cancer registry was established in 1993 and has been accredited by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) since 1996. Tonya Davis-Myers, CTR, Oncology Data Supervisor, states that the longevity of their CoC approval “supports our mission to improve the health and well-being of those in our community, by providing guidelines that focus on patient care.”

The registry staff consists of Mrs. Davis-Myers, CTR, Peter Zanoni, CTR, and Ying Qi, CTR who combined have more than 47 years of experience. They work together as a team, consistently meeting accreditation standards, reporting requirements, and have voluntarily served in roles for their state organization, the Tennessee Oncology Data Analysts Association (TODAA). In 2021, they accessioned a total of 836 cases, 669 analytic and 167 non-analytic. While the supervisor chooses to mainly work in the office on-site, employees can work remotely or in the office. Cancer Registry staff meets in the office for monthly staff meetings.

The latest episode of the Cancer Registry World podcast featuring guest Catherine Bieker, CTR, RHIT, BS-HCA, and Director of the Cancer Registry at Legacy SCL Health, now a part of Intermountain Healthcare. She joins Dr. Frederick L. Greene to discuss her journey towards becoming a CTR and highlights the benefits of a CTR career. She also discusses the importance of internships for CTRs and the ways that she has supported this effort.

Previous episodes with guests Jon Patrick, Barbara Dearmon, Lejla Hadzikadic-Gusic, William Laffey, Rohit Nayak, Mellisa Wheeler, Lillie D. Shockney, and Karen Mason, are still available on our website or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, including ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and TuneIn.

Quality ... the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something.

In the cancer registry profession, quality standards are developed by the standard setters. Quality data is paramount in providing useful data for research and throughout the health system. Quality measures are in place to ensure that cancer patients receive the best possible care for diagnosis and treatment of their disease.

In addition to these standards there are other ways that registries can look at their data to ensure quality. This month’s tip reveals some additional ideas for maintaining quality data:

• Run a monthly Database Validation (duplicate case) report in CRStar. This report is located in the System Admin module under Utilities. 
• If possible duplicate cases are identified, confirm the duplicate case and utilize the Combine Patient feature to merge the case together and delete the duplicate. This feature is located under Abstract Management and Abstract Utilities.
• Ensure that all users maintain the most current edit metafiles. Check the CRStar monthly list of enhancements and corrections to check for new metafiles released from your state and the standard setters.
• If your state uses state specific metafiles, consider running more than one edit set (i.e., NAACCR/NCDB). This will ensure that edits are caught that your state may otherwise have removed from their metafiles. Doing this saves valuable time during the NCDB Call for Data. Not to mention ensuring extra quality checks of the data.
• Require that all users run edits after entering follow-up, recurrence, treatment updates or any other changes to existing fields.
• Utilize the Genedit Plus Edit Detail Report to help solve the more complex edits.
• Utilize the Quality Measure Dashboard reports in CRStar, as well as the Quality Measure report to identify non-compliant cases. This report is located in the reporting module under CPM Reports.
• Remember, edits do not catch everything and are not a total measure of quality data. Set up your own quality reports using one of CRStar’s Ad hoc reports to look for things that the edits do not pick up. Such as too many unknown values, too many blank values or to compare codified fields to the appropriate text fields for accuracy

Use quality reviews as an educational opportunity and always look for areas for process improvement. These reviews are also a great way to justify educational funding for staff. Quality data ensures quality care for our patients!

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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