NCRA’s Registry Best Practice Mini-Shorts are narrated presentations designed to help the abstracting process become more efficient and accurate. The presentations are posted to NCRA’s Center for Cancer Registry Education. 

The NCRA Informatics Committee produced the mini-shorts outlined below. Learn more and access these mini-shorts. 

What is Informatics defines informatics, outlines some of the disciplines within informatics, reviews key terms and concepts, and discusses what informatics means to the cancer registrar, including the impact and challenges in the registry. 

The Process of Rethinking and Updating Case Finding demonstrates existing and new ways of case finding to assist cancer registrars in using the following data sources: billing data using NCI SEER case finding list, appointment (visit) information, pathology reports, and treatment data using pharmacy, surgical radiation charges.

Leveraging Informatics on Follow-up Operations reviews the advantages of applying informatics to follow-up, outlining how it is used for research and cancer registry operations. The application of technology to data collection is explained and how it provides researchers with increased efficiency and cost-effective solutions to track cancer survival statistics is detailed. 

Excelling in Excel: Tips & Tricks reviews a few tips and tricks in Microsoft Excel that can help in the cancer registry. This includes how to format worksheets, utilize a key tool under the data tab to import data into a workbook, and understanding a formula that assists when an error occurs.

Excelling in Excel: Power Query reviews features in Microsoft Excel under the Data tab called Power Query. Power Query allows for data to be manipulated, combined, and loaded in one area and, therefore, data can be updated automatically, allowing for a more efficient workflow.