Pathologists Collaborate to Improve Reporting and Accessibility of Cancer Pathology Findings

A new partnership has been formed to provide an electronic application service to enhance cancer pathology reporting and use of datasets.

The College of American Pathologists (CAP; Northfield, IL, USA) and mTuitive, Inc. (Centerville, MA, USA) have forged a collaboration to more effectively capture and report cancer pathology findings by providing a product and service that will facilitate production and use of standardized, encoded, and interoperable data sets for use in patient care, registries, research, and biorepositories.

Together, the CAP and mTuitive have developed “CAP eFRM” – the CAP electronic Forms and Reporting Module, an application incorporating the CAP electronic Cancer Checklists (eCC). Cancer case summaries within 65 cancer protocols are electronically represented within the eCC in addition to two new tumor biomarker reporting templates for colon and lung cancer. eFRM was now presented at the CAP’s annual meeting (CAP 2013, Orlando, FA, USA). “We designed eFRM to help pathologists and laboratories make more effective use of data electronically as they care for patients,” said Charles Roussel, CAP CEO; “This application eases eCC implementation for health care and laboratory system vendors, ultimately benefiting pathologists, laboratory professionals, clinicians, and patients.”

The American College of Surgeons - Commission on Cancer (CoC) has also recognized the value of the CAP cancer protocols and has mandated that pathologists at CoC-approved cancer programs include the required data elements of the cancer protocols in their surgical pathology reports on cancer specimens.

mTuitive's unique method of capturing and reporting structured information provides valuable data for pathology, surgery, oncology, and cancer staging applications. “We believe in and are committed to what the CAP is doing in cancer care and, through our collaboration, eFRM furthers how information technology can improve care for cancer patients,” said John Murphy, CEO, mTuitive.

The CAP and mTuitive will offer two versions of eFRM. The first is a basic, standalone version; the second includes a wider range of functionality and was designed to be integrated within a laboratory information system. Both versions will facilitate broader adoption among pathologists and help simplify the management of content changes to the cancer protocols.

Related Links:
College of American Pathologists (CAP)
mTuitive