ASCO is beginning the development of a breast cancer–specific prototype for CancerLinQ™, the Society’s multiphase initiative to develop a rapid learning system in cancer care. The prototype will include innovations that will help transform the way cancer is understood and treated. ASCO has contracted with Sapient, a leader in health care technology, to assist with the development of the prototype.

“We know very little about most patients with cancer, from their molecular profiles to the outcomes of treatments, because this information is tucked away in millions of medical records all over the world. Fortunately, science and technological advances have brought us to a point wherewe know gathering and utilizing this information to improve cancer careis achievable,” said ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD. “We are pleased to work with an organization of Sapient’s caliber to develop this prototype, which will be our guidepost in the development of CancerLinQ.”

ASCO’s vision for CancerLinQ is a system that assembles and analyzes millions of unconnected medical records in a central knowledge base, which will grow “smarter” over time. This rapid learning system will harness technologic advances to connect oncology practices, measure quality and performance, and provide physicians with decision support in real time. In June, ASCO announced that it was entering the assessment phase of this initiative, with the first step being the development of the prototype.

Improving the quality of cancer care
CancerLinQ represents the next major step in ASCO’s efforts to improve the quality of cancer care, efforts that are being brought together in a new ASCO Institute for Quality, established in 2011. The prototype will use ASCO’s breast cancer clinical practice guidelines and measures of its Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) as the foundation for its quality measurement and clinical decision tools. ASCO will then input de-identified breast cancer patient records and data imported from the electronic health records (EHRs) of academic centers and oncology practices and begin developing the prototype’s functions.

The process will allow ASCO to determine and overcome technologic barriers to creating a more robust system encompassing all types of cancer and identify requirements around the use of data standards. As a proof of concept, once completed, the prototype will:

• provide the foundational information to allow ASCO to move into a full-scale implementation;
• provide real-time, standardized, clinical decision support integration within a demonstration EHR;
• demonstrate a set of value-added tools, including a physician’s ability to measure his or her performance against a subset of QOPI measures in real-time;
• demonstrate the ability to capture data from a variety of sources and aggregate the data using novel methodologies; and
• create a demonstration that will allow exploration of data in unprecedented ways and generate hypotheses related to breast cancer.

ASCO plans to unveil the prototype at the inaugural Quality Care Symposium, November 30-December 1, 2012, inSan Diego.

For more information, visit asco.org/CancerLinQ.