Development of a computerised cancer data management system at the Mayo Clinic

A multidisciplinary team was assembled to design a cancer data management system that would meet the storage, retrieval and analysis NEEDS OF Mayo's clinical trials of anti-tumour drugs. To fulfill these requirements, a computerised data entry and retrieval system was developed, the primary patient health record used by the oncologists was redesigned and the clerical procedures and work flow within the Cancer Center Statistics Office were reorganised. The end result of this project is a system that has: (1) enabled Mayo to meet its reporting requirements as a Comprehensive Cancer Center; (2) provided the statisticians and the physicians with the capacity to perform more detailed and accurate analyses of clinical trials; (3) reduced the clerical effort needed for preparing reports and analyses; (4) provided the potential for expansion to meet the growing requirements of the future and (5) attained that often elusive goal of computer systems--user satisfaction.