Welcome Aboard, Nicki Skipper, CTR |
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ERS would like to welcome Nicki Skipper, BS, CTR, to the team! Nicki joined ERS on March 1 as a Client Advocate Specialist. She comes to our team with a multitude of cancer registry experience, having earned her Bachelors of Science in Microbiology from UMASS Amherst. She earned her CTR license in 2007.
Nicki has held positions in several areas within the cancer registry space, with experience in a CoC accredited hospital registry, a state central registry and most recently as a Technical Support Specialist with C/Net Solutions. She is originally from Ohio and currently resides in Pensacola, FL.
In her “other life”, Nicki is a professional musician and has been performing professionally since 1983. She plays keyboards, bass guitar and sings! Nicki is an avid animal lover and is also a big Alabama Crimson Tide college football fan.
Nicki is looking forward to continuing her cancer registry journey with ERS and meeting the clients and mastering a new product. Welcome Nicki!
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Clinical Corner
Frederick L. Greene, MD, FACS, CMO
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March is “Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month” so it is appropriate to include some clinical facet of this malignancy in this month’s “Clinical Corner.” All of us will see many scientific reports and articles in the lay press this month that highlight the importance of colorectal malignancy. It is imperative to remember and promote the truism that all data included in these reports emanate from the cancer registry and reflect your work and dedication!
One such study, recently published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons (2/7/2022), reports the work of the Michigan Surgical Quality Collaborative and focuses on complication rates after colectomy. The authors’ goal was to estimate whether complications were related to patient co-morbidities, surgeon performance, or hospital system factors.
A total of 15,755 patients were included in the study. The mean hospital-level complication rate was 15.8% (range, 8.7% to 30.2%). The proportion of complications attributable to patient factors was 35.0%, while 2.4% was attributable to the surgeon and 1.8% was attributable to hospital systemic issues. This study demonstrated that factors at the patient level (co-morbidities) contributed 8-fold more to the development of complications after colectomy compared with variance at the surgeon and hospital level. This study underscores the importance for our cancer registries to collect data relating to co-morbidities of our cancer patients. This is a challenge that we all need to embrace.
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Cancer Center Showcase
UF Health Shands Hospital
Gainesville, FL
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Our Cancer Center Showcase series continues this month with UF Health Shands Hospital located in Gainesville, FL. UF Health is home to three not-for-profit hospital systems - UF Health Shands, UF Health Jacksonville and UF Health Central Florida - and includes 10 hospitals. It is part of one of the nation’s top 5 public research universities.
UF Health is the Southeast’s most comprehensive academic health center encompassing hospitals, physician practices, colleges, centers, institutes, programs, and services across Northeast and North Central Florida.
According to the U.S. News & World Report 2021-22 Best Hospitals survey, UF Health Shands Hospital in Gainesville, FL is nationally ranked in 6 adult specialties and 8 pediatric specialties and rated high performing in 5 adult specialties and 12 procedures and conditions.
The Cancer Registry at UF Health Shands started in 1959 and is currently led by Marcia Hodge, CTR, Director of Registry Operations. Marcia is assisted by eleven staff members including one supervisor, seven abstractors, two follow-up personnel and one Cancer Conference/Survivorship Care Plan Coordinator. All staff work remotely, with the follow-up staff and the supervisor coming on site once each month. The staff accessions approximately 3,800 cases annually, not including the reportable by agreement cases.
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If you are interested in featuring your health system in a future edition of the ERS newsletter, please contact us using the link below. |
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NCDB Call for Data Best Practices |
The 2022 NCDB Call for Data is already in full swing. The Call for Data opened 3/1/2022 and will close on 3/31/2022 at midnight CST. This month’s tip provides best practices to make the data submission process run smoothly and ensure a successful submission.
- Start early! Do not wait until the last minute to begin the edit cleanup.
- Fully read the information and instructions provided by the NCDB.
- Download GenEDITS Plus 5. Note: This is the same version of GenEDITS as the last Call for Data. If it is already downloaded, skip this process.
- Ensure the correct edit metafile is configured in CRStar.
- Check your FIN and NPI numbers for accuracy for each facility in the database.
- Perform a Database Validation check and eliminate duplicate cases.
- Run reports to check data for complete staging, treatment and follow-up data.
- Prior to the Call for Data process, perform follow-up activities to ensure the most updated cases are submitted.
- Run edits on all follow-up entered, as well as cases that are modified.
- Create a folder where you will save all submission files. Do not delete files until after confirmation of acceptance from NCDB.
- When editing, have a designated staff person run the file through GenEDITS Plus 5. However, multiple staff members can process and correct edits.
- Utilize a designated person to run the final submission fields through GenEDITS Plus 5.
- When correcting edits, utilize the edit detail report within GenEDITS Plus 5. The edit detail report will display valuable information to assist in correcting edits.
- Run the export and pass the files through GenEDITS Plus 5 until all edits are clear.
- Pause follow-up activities during the final run of edits and submission of files.
- Determine submission completeness as outlined by the NCDB.
- Take a deep breath and good luck!
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ERS is excited to participate this year as an in-person vendor at the 2022 NCRA Conference, April 6-9, 2022! You can also find us in the Virtual Exhibit Hall!
Please plan on stopping by both of our booths for more information on how ERS can help your cancer program achieve more and maximize the potential of your cancer registry and the actionable data it provides.
And don't forget to register for our door prize!
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Care to be Aware!
Cyber Security Tips
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One of the easiest tasks that an individual can do to protect valuable data is to make sure it isn’t roaming free on your computer.
Today’s operating systems have promoted a common location on most PCs to store downloaded data. The downloads folder on your computer can be a sitting time bomb of valuable PHI data from documents that you’ve worked on in the past, ranging from care committee information to various physician data requests.
Periodically scanning your downloads folder will help you find random documents with PHI in them that needs to be secured. Securing the documents can include moving them to an encrypted network share drive or possibly just deleting the documents. If you do not have a secure location to put your data files into, ask your IT team to provide you one.
Also be aware of documents that reside elsewhere on your local (c:) drive that you may have forgotten about. When hackers access your system, the first place they may look is your local drive for any Excel, Word or text document that may give them access to PHI with no password.
Don’t let PHI data sit idly on your PC. Lock it up!
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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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ERS, Inc. | www.mycrstar.com |
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