Electronic Laboratory Reporting
Alaska Cancer Registry
The Alaska Cancer Registry (ACR) began setting up the Public Health Information Network (PHIN) Messaging System (MS) in January, 2009. A year later, it installed eMaRC Plus software to access information, and received the first batch of files from LabCorp successfully on February 8, 2010. eMaRC Plus software builds a pathology laboratory database, storing various data elements as discrete field values into tables in the database. The program creates abstract records from pathology reports during import into the pathology laboratory database. The program is able to search for terms to identify potential reportable cancers, and an algorithm has been built to enhance the program's text mining capabilities in terms of specificity.
Electronic laboratory reporting will help with casefinding efforts and timeliness of cancer case reporting. Alaska has 24 hospitals, half of which are rural hospitals with fewer than 50 beds. Only two hospitals in Alaska are certified by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer, and only five hospitals have employed tumor registry staff. This shifts a significant burden to ACR in casefinding and completing abstracts for hospitals that do not have tumor registrars on staff. Electronic laboratory reporting is one way to improve the quality and completeness of ACR data so they accurately reflect cancer statistics for Alaska.
Contact Us:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Division of Cancer Prevention and Control
4770 Buford Hwy NE
MS K-64
Atlanta, GA 30341 - 800-CDC-INFO
(800-232-4636)
TTY: (888) 232-6348
8am–8pm ET
Monday–Friday
Closed on Holidays - cdcinfo@cdc.gov
