Informatics and data quality at collaborative multicenter Breast and Colon Cancer Family Registries.
Quality control and harmonization of data is a vital and challenging undertaking for any successful data coordination center and a responsibility shared between the multiple sites that produce, integrate, and utilize the data. Here we describe a coordinated effort between scientists and data managers in the Cancer Family Registries to implement a data governance infrastructure consisting of both organizational and technical solutions. The technical solution uses a rule-based validation system that facilitates error detection and correction for data centers submitting data to a central informatics database. Validation rules comprise both standard checks on allowable values and a crosscheck of related database elements for logical and scientific consistency. Evaluation over a 2-year timeframe showed a significant decrease in the number of errors in the database and a concurrent increase in data consistency and accuracy.
Clinical Research Informatics, Lombardi Cancer Center, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC, USA.
Peter B
PB
McGarvey
Sweta
S
Ladwa
Mauricio
M
Oberti
Anca Dana
AD
Dragomir
Erin K
EK
Hedlund
David Michael
DM
Tanenbaum
Baris E
BE
Suzek
Subha
S
Madhavan
D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D016208:Databases, Factual / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D011786:Quality Control; D012042:Registries / Q000592:standards*; D012107:Research Design; D014481:United States