Background/Aims: Access to large, inclusive cancer databases such as the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End-Results (SEER) registries enables timely and efficient identification of cancer cases and gathering of tumor data. HealthPartners Research Foundation’s (HPRF’s) ability to conduct cancer research has been hampered by lack of access to such registries. HPRF developed two capacity-building projects to explore how to quickly and accurately identify cancer cases and related data for research. Identification of a viable electronic data source would allow HPRF to populate the virtual data warehouse (VDW) tumor table and participate in multi-site studies within the CRN.
Methods: Cheri Rolnick, PhD, MPH conducted a study to assess linking with the population-based cancer registry, the Minnesota Cancer Surveillance System (MCSS), maintained by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) to identify cancer cases preparatory to research. HealthPartners (HP) automated claims data was used to identify 1450 patients, representing four cancer cohorts. Cases were forwarded to MDH to identify those that met defined criteria by matching records located within MCSS. In addition to connecting with MDH, we are also examining the capacities of the cancer registry at Regions, HP’s owned hospital. Thomas Flottemesch, PhD and Sue Braaten, the lead cancer registrar from Regions, have just received internal funding to examine the utility of registry data for research. The goal of this project is to test the feasibility of populating the VDW tumor tables with the data the hospital sends periodically to MDH, and to develop a formal, automated system of data transfer between Regions and HPRF.
Results: MDH was able to link 79% (1152 of 1450) of the cases identified by HP. Non-matches were due to misclassification by HP-created algorithms, patients not living in Minnesota, or patients with cancers different from those identified by HP records. Concordance for determining eligibility (stage, date of diagnosis) was high but not 100%.
Conclusions: Findings from the MCSS study created a process of data exchange between HP and MCSS that can be used in future studies. Results of this examination and the aims and design of the hospital registry study will be presented.