Implementing and Evaluating Modified Record Reporting in Ohio

For many years, Ohio's hospitals experienced challenges related to state cancer reporting as they were unable to provide updated information after an abstract was initially submitted to the state central registry. For this reason, hospitals would hold their data to ensure they submitted the most complete and accurate data, especially for treatment. Ohio needed to find an automated method to receive updates for abstracts.

In 2020, the Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System (OCISS) met with hospitals, hospital software vendors, and other state registries to investigate the option of collecting modified records (M-records). In 2021, OCISS completed an M-record pilot with a small subset of hospitals and began requiring M-records from all reporting hospitals in 2022. OCISS now has over a full years' experience processing M-record submissions.

OCISS has found creative solutions to overcome challenges, and M-record processing has become one of the standard tasks completed by OCISS. While the overall registry volume increased due to M-record reporting, the workload of the central registry did not. Additionally, Ohio hospitals expressed appreciation for being able to provide updated information and no longer needing to hold on to their abstract until treatment is completed.

M-record reporting has improved Ohio's registry operations. Ohio's cancer data is more complete and is reported more quickly. Implementing M-record reporting was challenging; however, as data timeliness becomes increasingly important, Ohio is well positioned to improve cancer reporting timeliness by leveraging M-record reporting.