Fully Automated Wait Time Report Generator for Nova Scotia Breast Screening Program

Abstract

In Canada, breast cancer is the most common type of cancer to afflict women. Although late stages are difficult to treat, prognoses for earlier stages are quite promising. Early detection is of paramount value in the eradication of the disease. This is reflected in the importance of screening tests as they have been shown to improve the outcomes for women with breast cancer. Due to the fact that breast cancer is so common, waiting lists for screening and diagnostic procedures can become lengthy. Managing these queues has become a priority in the quest for achieving early detection in women with this affliction. Some methods of managing wait times are generally unsatisfactory and prone to exaggeration. Wait time management through manual methods is time consuming and in many cases unstandardized. Other automated methods incorporate databases with archaic design that lead to faulty results. To combat this, the proposed solution in this paper is to use a better designed database structure and to integrate proper statistical and graphical methods for the calculation and management of wait times. To make this solution possible, a series of open source softwares were chosen. Open source programs were used for their ease of access, effectiveness and easy migration between platforms. The open source applications used for this project were Caisis, which is a database management system; R, which is a statistical analysis program; and Latex, which is a document preparation system. These three applications were used to construct an automatic report generator. This solution generates wait time reports in a time efficient manner from multiple sites spanning multiple time periods. The effect of these reports will hopefully lead to more efficient wait time management and ultimately contribute to the eradication of a lethal affliction that has haunted women the world over. This project would not have been possible without the consistent effort put forth by the author’s partner and teammate, Mr. Abdulhadi Habash. His contribution to the project was immense and integral in its completion. All aspects of the project were performed in tandem between the author and Mr. Habash