Synoptic surgical reporting for breast cancer surgery: an innovation in knowledge translation.
BACKGROUND
Extensive literature identifies that the quality of surgery not only influences morbidity and mortality but also long-term survival and function. This mandates that we develop a system to capture this information on a real-time basis.


METHODS
A synoptic surgical template for breast cancer was created; this was digitized and made available to all surgeons in Alberta.


RESULTS
The data reference 1,392 breast cancer procedures. Ninety-one percent of reports were submitted within 1 hour and 97% of reports were submitted within 24 hours. Fifty-two percent of reports were completed within 5 minutes. Information quality with respect to completeness of staging information was present in 89%. Eighty-four percent complied with practice guidelines and 89% of breast surgeons adopted the template. Seventy-five percent of users were moderately or highly satisfied with the system.


CONCLUSIONS
The experience with the development and implementation of synoptic surgical reporting has proven to be a successful tool for generating quality surgical data.
Temple
Walley J
WJ
Division of Surgical Oncology, University of Calgary, Tom Baker Cancer Centre, 1331 29th Street NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 4N2. walleyte@cancerboard.ab.ca
Francis
Wesley P
WP
Tamano
Evangeline
E
Dabbs
Kelly
K
Mack
Lloyd A
LA
Fields
Anthony
A
D000416:Alberta / Q000453:epidemiology; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000601:surgery*; D003697:Delphi Technique; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008408:Mastectomy / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D015996:Survival Rate; D014584:User-Computer Interface