i2b2, hosted by MICHR, is a cohort discovery and data search tool.
The cancer registry collects clinically relevant information on all patients diagnosed with and treated for cancer at the University of Michigan. The registry is required to collect documentation about cancer patients in order to maintain accredidation by the American College of Surgeons (ACOS), the group responsible for assigning the "comprehensive" status to cancer centers. The registry is staffed by 7 full time registrars who pore through pathology reports, patient charts, clinic schedules, and death records in order to identify cancer patients and extract information pertaining to their clinical outcomes. They make every attempt to follow the progress of the patients for life, even if they leave the state. The registry has been used to report summary statistics to governmental agencies and has also been used for research purposes by cancer center investigators. Almost 48,000 patients were added to the registry between 1997 and 2004, with nearly 7,000 new cases added in 2004 alone.
The Informatics Core provides informatics solutions to assist the registry in the collection of accurate data and are working to make it available to researchers via the i2b2 query interface.
The UMCCC maintains a comprehensive registry of all patients treated at the University of Michigan. The Informatics Core provides support to ensure accurate and comprehensive collection of data on these patients including diagnosis, stage, and treatment. Data are available with IRB approval. Additionally, we are working to make the data available for de-identified cohort discovery through the CTSA-funded i2b2 Workbench query tool, a joint effort with MICHR and MCIT. With this tool users can identify cohorts of patients by choosing from various categories including diagnosis, stage, labs, demographics, and other elements.
The Cancer Registry fulfills the center's legal requirement to submit data on cancer cases to a statewide registry. In addition, the registry provides data for UMHS operations and research.
Cancer Center Informatics is involved with the registry on several levels. CCI recently helped the registry analyze their staffing levels and investigate whether technological solutions would help them manage their caseload. Currently, CCI is building a reporting platform to supply operational and research data from the registry to interested parties within the Cancer Center.
