dc.description.abstract | This paper presents and documents tasks and research performed during the author’s Master of Health Informatics internship at the Diagnostic Radiology Department in collaboration with the Nova Scotia Breast Screening Program (NSBSP) in 2012. The NSBSP aims to reduce female morbidity and mortality from breast cancer. To help accomplish this goal, the NSBSP has adopted a new open-source application to enhance the capturing, storing, and accessing of data. The main objective of this internship was to help the NSBSP facilitate the case review process (Mammography Round) by creating a Round module on a CAISIS platform. Mammography Rounds are conducted regularly to ensure the integrity of the diagnosis prior to treatment. The main objective of the research was achieved within the set schedule.
The author was also assigned to provide an appropriate solution to exchange pathology data between CAISIS and CERNER MILLENNIUM. The author proposed using HL7 and DICOM to facilitate data exchange between CAISIS and the Legacy systems, but the solution was not accepted due to limited funding. The author then proposed a second solution using JAVA, which was accepted, and hence sending pathology data from CAISIS to CERNER MILLENNIUM was achieved.
In this paper, the author provides an in-depth analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the proposed solution via a SWOT analysis.
At the conclusion of the paper, the author provides some recommendations that could be used to improve cancer data capture and exchange. These recommendations include:
? Using HL7 to create interoperability between CAISIS and the Legacy systems.
? Improving the sharing of Pathology images by adapting the use of a PACS system.
? Creating a Pathology synoptic report to increase report quality, reduce typographic errors, and increase productivity and overall cancer data quality.
In this internship, most of the tasks were achieved by applying what the author learned in the Master of Health Informatics courses. | en_US |