The American Society of Clinical Oncology has unveiled a prototype of an online database tool that has the potential to achieve higher quality and higher value cancer care and better outcomes for patients.
The prototype, CancerLinQ, lets physicians use de-identified data from the electronic health records of 100,000 patients with breast cancer treated at U.S. cancer care practices to search for the most effective treatment for their own patients.
CancerLinQ will allow ASCO to develop a knowledge-generating computer network that could eventually collect and analyze cancer care data from millions of patient visits, together with expert guidelines and other evidence, to generate real-time, personalized guidance and quality feedback for physicians, according to a press release issued Wednesday.
The prototype demonstrates the possibility of a learning health system for physicians to deliver better quality care and outcomes for cancer patients. Currently, little is known about the experience of most cancer patients because their information resides in unconnected servers and paper files, said Sandra Swain, MD, president of ASCO, in the press release. Swain is also medical director of the Washington Cancer Institute at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center.
“Only the 3 percent of patients who participate in clinical trials are able to contribute to advances in treatment,” she said in the announcement, adding that CancerLinQ will have the potential to transform cancer care “by unlocking that wealth of information and enabling every patient to be a cancer knowledge donor.”
It isn’t difficult for physicians to participate in the database, said W. Charles Penley, MD, an oncologist at Tennessee Oncology, which contributed breast cancer patient data to the prototype and is chair of ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation.
“Since the prototype accepts data in any format, it took just a few hours of staff time to securely contribute data on more than 12,000 of our patients,” he said.
CancerLinQ is a project of ASCO’s Institute for Clinical Excellence and is supported by the Conquer Cancer Foundation.
The prototype’s core functions are built on several open-source IT applications, and will ultimately include data on more than 133,000 cases from oncology practices across the country. ASCO plans to publish its lessons learned over the coming year, and will use them to inform its development of the full CancerLinQ system.
“The future of our healthcare system hinges on the success of initiatives like this – and on the willingness of healthcare providers, payers and policymakers to support their implementation,” said Lynn Etheredge, director of the Rapid Learning Project at George Washington University, in the press release.