CancerLinQ Debuts Data Analytics Platform

Jun 25, 2015

Completes agreements with additional oncology practices and opens California office

ASCO’s wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary, CancerLinQ™ LLC, provided the first demonstration of its groundbreaking health information technology (HIT) platform at ASCO’s 51st Annual Meeting in Chicago’s McCormick Place. CancerLinQ has also completed agreements with 12 of the 15 oncology practices across the United States that will adopt the first version of CancerLinQ beginning late in 2015.

CancerLinQ will harness big data analytics to help oncologists deliver high-quality care to patients with cancer. The system will unlock real-world patient care data from electronic health records (EHRs), and securely process and analyze the data to provide immediate quality feedback and guidance to physicians. Earlier this year, ASCO announced that CancerLinQ will be developed using SAP HANA®, a flexible, multipurpose data management and application platform created by SAP.

“Our vision for CancerLinQ is ambitious— it is for every patient’s experience to contribute to the most compassionate, effective, and sustainable cancer care possible.” said ASCO Immediate Past President Peter Paul Yu, MD, FACP, FASCO. “This first version offers a glimpse at the potential for big data to make cancer care better and more seamless. But it’s just a taste of the future, in which every patient’s care will be guided by up-tothe- minute science and data-driven insights.”

Each stage of CancerLinQ will deliver successively more powerful tools and insights to physicians, researchers, patients, and others in the cancer community. The version demonstrated at the Annual Meeting and being rolled out later this year features several core components of the CancerLinQ system. These will enable physicians to:

  • Monitor clinical quality measures in real time —continually tracking performance to prospectively improve quality of care
  • Consider trends that could improve care — gaining insights from de-identified data on thousands of patients
  • Identify groups of anonymous patients with shared characteristics — making it possible for physicians to understand how other patients like theirs were treated
  • Make better use of EHRs — for example, by creating a personalized patient timeline that provides a visual snapshot of a patient’s treatments, side effects, and outcomes

Beginning in late 2015, CancerLinQ will work with 15 vanguard practices to begin implementing the first version of the system in clinical settings. Their aggregated data will encompass approximately 500,000 patient records.

Twelve of the practices have already committed to CancerLinQ, representing a diverse mix of U.S. cancer care providers. They include:

  • MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington Cancer Institute— Washington, DC
  • Marin Cancer Care—Marin, CA
  • Montgomery Cancer Center— Montgomery, AL
  • New England Cancer Specialists— Portland, ME
  • INOVA Medical Group—Fairfax, VA
  • Medical Oncology Hematology Consultants, PA—Newark, DE
  • Southcoast Centers for Cancer Care—New Bedford, MA
  • Zangmeister Center—Columbus, OH
  • Michiana Hematology Oncology, PC—Crown Point, Mishawaka, South Bend, Elkhart, Plymouth, and Westville, IN
  • Space Coast Cancer Center—Merritt Island, Melbourne, Viera, and Titusville, FL
  • Cancer Treatment Centers of America—Phoenix, AZ
  • Catholic Health Initiatives—Denver, CO

CancerLinQ has also opened a new office in San Francisco to draw on toptier technical talent and build relationships within the technology industry.

CancerLinQ is a project of CancerLinQ LLC. For more information, please visit CancerLinQ.org.

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