The upgrade is part of a pilot project that includes pathologists at a dozen hospitals in the state.
In the project, healthcare providers report cancer diagnoses in close to real-time to the California Cancer Registry, and use standardized electronic forms to make their reporting more consistent and accurate, according to the report.
California’s registry, run by the state Department of Public Health, has traditionally relied on data up to two years old. But Lawrence D. Wagman, executive medical director of the Center for Cancer Prevention and Treatment at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, Calif., told California Healthline that if the cancer registry had current information, medical providers could see what treatments were most effective and make more informed and timelier decisions with their patients.
Currently, hospitals and cancer centers in California are required to report nearly all cancer diagnoses to the state registry, but only about 5 percent of diagnostic data are currently being sent in real time, California Healthline reports. State health officials plan to expand that to as much as 10 percent by June 2017 and 65 percent by 2022.
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