Oncology Outcomes Database Project

The NCCN Oncology Outcomes Database Project is a network-based data collection, reporting, and analytic system that describes the patterns and outcomes of care delivered in the management of patients with cancer. The concept for the Project was established in 1996, and the operation of the first database in breast cancer was initiated in July of 1997. With the NCCN Oncology Outcomes Database Project, NCCN seeks to implement the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ through performance measurement. The objectives for data collection and reporting are to:

• Describe the patterns of care within NCCN Member Institutions
• Measure concordance of practice in NCCN Member Institutions with NCCN Guideline recommendations
• Evaluate the outcomes of such practice patterns
• Deliver benchmarked data to participating NCCN Member Institutions, practicing physicians, and NCCN Guidelines Panels to facilitate the continuous improvement of the quality of cancer care
• Identify the most efficient and cost-effective strategies for the management of common oncologic conditions
• Offer benchmarking capabilities to NCCN Member Institutions comparing network data, institutional data, and, eventually, community data
• Create a major research resource and repository of data for clinical and health service researchers to access and derive hypothesis-generated analyses.

Presently, the NCCN Oncology Outcomes Database Project has five active database components. Currently, the breast cancer database involves 12 NCCN Member Institutions and fifteen community sites. It is the most mature and robust of the databases and serves as the model for future development. The breast cancer database follows more than 35,000 patients with approximately 250 data elements collected on each patient in areas of sociodemographics, clinical interventions, and clinical and non-clinical outcomes. The data is high-quality and research-worthy as on-site audits of data occur within three months of a site joining the database and on an annual basis thereafter.

Due to the success of the breast cancer project, the NCCN Oncology Outcomes Database Project now includes non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, colon/rectal cancers, and non-small cell lung cancer. Currently seven NCCN Member Institutions participate in the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma database, which has accrued nearly 4,000 patients and seven NCCN Member Institutions participate in a colon/rectal cancers database, which has accrued nearly 2,500 patients. In 2007, a non-small cell lung cancer database was initiated with seven NCCN Member Institutions. In 2008, NCCN will launch a database in ovarian cancer with six NCCN Member Institutions.