May 2022 Newsletter

ERS launched its new podcast, Cancer Registry World, in conjunction with the NCRA 2022 Educational Conference at the beginning of April. The first episode featured Karen Mason, RN, CTR and President of NCRA. Hosted by Dr. Frederick L. Greene, CMO, Cancer Registry World focuses on the role of cancer registrars and cancer registries in the universal treatment of malignancy.

Each podcast segment will feature cancer registrars, clinicians, organizations, administrators, researchers, and representatives of all healthcare groups who contribute to and benefit from data that are derived from cancer registries. New episodes will be released on the first Tuesday of each month.

Our latest episode was released on Tuesday, May 3rd and features guest Lillie D. Shockney, RN, BS, MAS, HON-ONN-CG, Distinguished Service Professor of Breast Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Co-Founder of the Academy of Oncology Nurse and Patient Navigators (AONN+), Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Oncology Navigation and Survivorship. 

Cancer Registry World is available on our website or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, including ApplePodcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio and TuneIn.

Cancer is an elusive disease – one that can hide from our body’s immune defenses and even hijack those defenses for its own purposes. To battle the disease, systemic treatments have long relied on the twin cudgels of chemotherapy, to poison the cancer cells and radiation, to blast them to death. The treatments can be lifesaving, but they also carry significant side effects.

An alternative is to empower our immune systems to recognize and destroy cancer. Cancer “immunotherapy,” as it is called, works by weaponizing immune cells to perform what are, in essence, highly precise drone strikes on cancer cells. This approach, known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, involves extracting a small number of white blood cells called T cells from a patient’s blood, then genetically modifying them to kill cancer. Those cells are then infused back into the patient. The entire process takes about two weeks, as opposed to other processes that can take months. The genetically engineered CAR T cells continue to replicate in the body, generating a population of hundreds of millions within a few days – a veritable army of cancer killers. CAR T-cell therapy has redefined the paradigm for how to treat children and adults with certain hematological malignancies.

Although CAR T therapy has achieved impressive outcomes in patients with hematologic cancers, similar results for those with solid tumors have remained elusive. Hopefully, new CAR T treatments will show activity against relapsed or refractory advanced solid tumors. The data entered into and retrieved from our cancer registries will pave the way for these exciting possibilities.

Invitations for our upcoming educational webinar, Cancer Registry Data: Hidden Gem of Healthcare were sent to CRStar users on Tuesday, May 3rd. If you did not receive the invitation (which contains the registration link), please submit a support request and one of our Client Advocate Specialists will happily send you the invite.

This one hour webinar will be presented by Barbara Dearmon, Manager, Oncology Support Services at St. Vincent's Jacksonville, and Catherine Bieker, Director, System Cancer Registry for SCL Health. Amy Arnold, BA, CTR, Manager, Strategic Services for ERS, will moderate the presentation.

The webinar is at noon EST on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 with an encore presentation at noon EST on Thursday, May 19, 2022, and will focus on promoting the use of cancer registry data, how cancer registry data can be utilized to support hospital administration, how to determine referral patterns and how this can help facilities look for growth opportunities, and utilizing registry data to support NAPBC program w/ BPL audits

This webinar has been approved for 1 CEU by NCRA.

Several members of the ERS Speakers Bureau just wrapped up presentations for the Montana Cancer Registrars Association's Spring Workshop. Dr. Rick Greene, Amy Arnold and Jonathan Rakestraw presented four sessions, speaking about Data Quality, Edit Enlightenment, Synoptic Operative Reports and the Current Management of Pancreaticobiliary Cancer.

Dr. Greene will also present at upcoming meetings for the Florida Cancer Registrars Association and the Michigan Cancer Registrars Association.

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!

Topics include 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. Our speakers can also 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! Click the link below to learn more about the ERS Speakers Bureau.

It was so great to see many of you in person at the ERS Booth at NCRA 2022 and appreciate you for making us a part of your NCRA experience. We were pleased that so many of you stayed for a moment to chat. And for those attending the conference virtually, we were glad to see that so many of you stopped by our virtual booth as well!

Congratulations go to Julie Hill from Registry Partners, the winner of the 2022 NCRA ERS raffle. She received a COACH Day Tote!

At this conference, you heard us talk about our emphasis on Automated Data Exchange and enhanced NLP solutions for casefinding. Please reach out to us for more information about these solutions and how they can help your registry become the hub of the cancer center at your facility!

Hope to see all of you next year in San Diego!

Undoubtedly one of the most common situations that can lead to a data breach is people adopting unnecessary urgency when dealing with PHI data.

Nearly everyone works under deadlines and company oversight as they attempt to be both productive and timely in their work. But allow me to speak as one of those people who have oversight of your work - no one ever wants you to take an unnecessary risk with the PHI data that you are overseeing in cancer registry in order to make a deadline!

There are certain activities that are so important that there should be no limit placed on the time it takes to perform the simple and safe processes that are necessary to protect your data. Many people who expose PHI data do so out of haste. Mistakes are made when working under duress - time constraints being the most common factor.

To safeguard your PHI, be sure to carve out a special workflow when dealing with PHI data, especially when it is being made available to your internal cancer care team as well as outside regulatory agencies. If you find yourself distracted at a critical juncture with PHI, delay your PHI handling until you can work undistracted.

Take it slow. Stay focused. Keep it secure!

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.

View a CRStar video

Read user stories

Visit our website

ERS, Inc. | www.mycrstar.com