NCRA Study Guide CTR: Follow-Up, Case-Finding, Abstracting/Coding

What is the primary purpose of performing follow-up? - Ensure continued medical surveillance to evaluate success of therapy The two most important case-finding sources for central registries are - Pathology reports and disease indices Disease index - List of diseases and conditions diagnosed in identified patients that are coded by using a standard classification system (such as ICD and CPT codes) Freestanding pathology laboratories may be a case-finding source for a - State central cancer registry When abstracting a case, the first step is to - Determine the primary site(s) by reading the medical record. In the U.S., follow-up is required for hospitals to receive accreditation for cancer programs by the - ACoS (American College Surgeons) CoC These case are EXCLUDED in CoC follow-up calculations: - 1. Non-analytic cases 2. Foreign residents 3. Reportable by agreement 4. Squamous Cell Skin Cancers 5. Class of Case 0 diagnosed after 01/10/2006 6. Diagnosed after 01/01/2003 7. Patients w/ no follow-up 12 months 8. Age exceeds 100 yrs How can follow-up be obtained? - Through re-admission to a hospital, outpatient visits, or from patient's present Dr. in response to follow-up letters. ACoS CoC requires follow-up information be obtained at least __________________ for all living analytic patients included in cancer registry database. - annually (yearly) Active follow-up - Direct contact w/ Dr's or patients, or letters to other facilities Sending follow-up letters to Dr. to obtain info. on a patient as well as through telephone What follow-up refers to someone initiating direct contact with patients? From a central registry perspective, it may also include contacts made by hospital registrars with physician's offices. - Active follow-up Passive follow-up - Does not require direct contact; Determines patient's vital status, current date last known to be alive, and date/cause of patient's death _______________ is primarily used to determine the patient's status, and if dead, the cause of death. This usually involves computerized searches of nonregistry files. This is the primary method of follow-up used by central registries. - Passive follow-up What follow-up refers to methods that do not require registry contact with hospitals, physicians, or individual cancer patients. These methods usually involve computerized searches of existing non-registry files that may contain the cancer patient's name, and follow-up status can be inferred. - Passive follow-up Which of the following are considered "passive" follow-up linkage sources for central registry? - Motor vehicle/driver license files Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Stage voter registration files Death indexes or obituaries Core Data Items needed for Successful Follow-up - Name, DOB, SSN, Dx Date, Primary site, Cancer Tx, Cancer status, Autopsy, Recurrence date Last contact date, Place/Cause of Death Cancer committee monitors follow-up rate for ALL analytic patients. - True Case is considered delinquent if the date of last contact exceed how many months? - 15 months What type of follow-up letter is necessary? - Physician When a follow-up letter is returned, what date do you use to update your database as the date of last contact? - The date patient or representative signed and completed the letter Follow-up can be done by checking the hospital records to determine whether the patient has been seen in the facility. - True During which process(es) is selected information reported shortly after initial diagnosis? - Rapid Case Ascertainment (RCA) Commission on Cancer's (CoC) Rapid Quality Reporting System (RQRS) What manual is currently used to code causes of death on the death certificates? - ICD-10 Hospital registry report all updated follow-up info. to the central registry and Coc's NCDB. True or False - True Living w/ Cancer - Being diagnosed and treated Living through Cancer - Time following Tx when recurrence risk is high. Living beyond Cancer - Refers to being past Tx and long-term survivor ship Approximately what percentage of cancer cases is histologically confirmed? - 95% Case-finding - System of identifying all potentially eligible cases that are to be included in the registry database;