Novel Database May Feasibly Streamline Cancer Care Workflow

A novel comprehensive cancer database may make it easier for various providers to see critical patient information via a single source rather than tracking down information from 5 or 6 different electronic medical records (EMRs), according to Leila Tchelebi, MD.

Tchelebi, a radiation oncologist at Northwell Health, spoke with CancerNetwork® about findings that she and colleagues presented in a poster session at the 2025 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting.Their research revealed that a unified cancer database encompassing information from 14 different institutions could feasibility streamline patient care, consolidate data, and allow for survival tracking across networks.

Transcript:

This was just the tip of the iceberg....to make sure that it is feasible and that these data can actually be consolidated. We were able to take over 100,000 cancer cases across our 14 facilities, totaling over 200,000 patient records. We consolidated these so that we would be able to implement survival tracking across the cancer registry that is available. We were able to integrate the different treatments that the patients had received between chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery all into 1 place, so that for 1 individual patient, you would be able to go to that record and track exactly what treatments were rendered, rather than having to look in multiple different places.

We were able to incorporate genomic profiles from laboratories for those individual patients; this could be used to see what genetic mutations the patients might have that might impact future cancers down the road. Then, the records were consolidated; by collecting data from the various databases with different EMRs for each patient across the different databases, we were able to consolidate and significantly decrease the number of records so that for 1 individual patient, instead of having 5 or 6 different EMRs across the system, it was now consolidated into 1 data set within this database. [This makes] it easy for various providers, again, to see what treatments the patients had, what their lab values are, and what genetic mutations they might have all in 1 place.

Reference

Tchelebi L, Lindsay WD, Yee K, Wishinsky J, Labarca ME, Potters L. Building a comprehensive cancer database across fourteen treatment facilities in a large health care system. Presented at: 2025 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting; September 27-October 1, 2025; San Francisco, CA.