Abstract and case study poster sessions will be conducted during the College of American Pathologists’ Annual Meeting (CAP ‘07), which is scheduled for September 30 to October 3, 2007. The meeting will occur at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Chicago, Ill. The poster sessions will occur in the Connection Café and Exhibit Hall. Specific dates and times for each poster session are listed below. Also shown below each poster session listing are the subject areas that will be presented during each session.

POSTER SESSION 100: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2007, 10:00 AM-12:30 PM

Informatics; Hematopathology

Synoptic Reporting of Cancer Resection Specimens Using a Synoptic Tool: A 3-Year Experience With More Than 7500 Specimens

Anil V. Parwani, MD, PhD1 (parwaniav@upmc.edu); Ronald Angeles, MD1; Anthony Piccoli, BS1; Sharon Winters, MS2; Samuel Yousem, MD1; Michael Becich, MD, PhD.3 Departments of 1Pathology and 2Cancer Registry, University of PittsburghMedical Center, Pittsburgh, Pa; 3Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Context: Cancer checklists comprising standardized data elements are valuable tools that clinicians use to guide them in managing patients. We describe our experience with the use of Synoptic Worksheet entry tool for multiple malignant resections and also describe the use of synoptics in providing reports in our clinical environment of multiple academic and community centers.

Design: We used a synoptic reporting tool as part of existing laboratory information system, CoPathPlus, from Cerner DHT Corp. We modified the College of American Pathologists checklists into worksheets for select organ systems and malignancies. The synoptics have been in use for 40 months in our laboratory information system. The data were present as discrete data elements. A data element, that is, tumor type, is in the value dictionary under the value of tumor type, allowing users to search for cases that have that value point populated.

Results: A total of 7626 specimens in our network had synoptic report completed. Breast (1534), prostate (1373), colorectum and appendix (673), lung (606), and melanoma (533) were the most used templates in the system. Rarer malignancies including parathyroid and adrenal cortical carcinoma, penile tumor, and gallbladder tumors had fewer synoptic templates in the system (Table).

Conclusions: Use of the new synoptic report minimizes transcription errors, enables quicker access to information, and improves communication for cancer management. Such uniformity lends itself to ease of data viewing and extraction, as demonstrated by rapid production of standardized, high-quality data from these malignant resection specimens.

This work is partially supported by College of American Pathologists Foundation Rippey Grant for Quality Assurance.

Analysis of a Standardized Colorectal Cancer Resection Reporting Process in a Subspecialized Academic Pathology Department

(Poster No. 2)

Chad R. Rund, DO (rundcr@upmc.edu); Sharon B.Winters, MS, RHIA, CTR; Anthony L. Piccoli, BS; Anil V. Parwani, MD, PhD. Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pa.

Context: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) use (Cerner’s CoPathPlus) of reporting College of American Pathologists (CAP) colorectal resection synoptic defined clinical elements was studied. Specific aims included (1) does UPMC synoptic use reflect the CAP requirements, (2) are CAP checklists more accurate and complete than traditional reports, and (3) will pathologists routinely use the checklists.

Design: Fifty random colorectal synoptics were chosen and evaluated for accuracy with respect to the 15 CAP scientifically validated elements (2005). Synoptics were compared with final text diagnoses and comments and codes were assigned according to completeness and accuracy. Textbased and synoptic values were assessed for the same cases but not at the individual pathologist level.

Code 0: synoptic value completed but not matching final text diagnosis

Code 1: . . . completed and matches

Code 2: . . . completed and matches comment only

Code 3: . . . completed but not in final diagnosis or comment

Code 4: . . . not completed but available in final diagnosis

Code 5: . . . not completed but available in comment only

Code 6: . . . not completed or available in final diagnosis or comment