Application of a standard methodology for the development of messages and aspects of realization in the area of tumour documentation.

The "Methodology for the Development of Health Care Messages" was published in 1995 by CEN TC251. This contribution describes the application of the methodology in a project of developing messages for the exchange of tumour patient data. A standard data set, the "Basisdokumentation für Tumorkranke" was already available for the data of tumour documentation. The development of the messages as well as the design and implementation of a communication interface in a documentation system could therefore be carried out straight forward. Problems arise due to the import of data from different sources. Up to now, there is no standardized method for identifying patients and numbering of different tumours. An automated matching of new data to a specific patient or tumour is therefore not always possible. Methods are presented which try to make a compromise between fully automatic data import and complete user control.

GTDS--a tool for tumor registries to support shared patient care.

German hospital tumor registries play an active role in the treatment of cancer patients. Besides the documentation of the course of a disease, they directly support medical treatment and follow-up care over a long period. As the treatment of oncologic patients is a shared multidisciplinary task, the availability of information is one of the most valuable outputs. Therefore, the documentation has to be integrated into the medical treatment, which only can be achieved when useful services are based on it. Since 1983 the basis of the documentation has been a uniform basic data set which was revised in 1990 and, according to be requirements mentioned above, allows detailed documentation, especially of therapy. During the last four years a new documentation system for tumor diseases has been developed and was implemented in 30 hospital tumor registries by the "Arbeitsgruppe zur Koordination Klinischer Krebsregister". The so-called "Giessener Tumordokumentationssystem" (GTDS) is the basis of the work in those registries. In this paper the functions and services which were implemented in order to support the individual treatment of oncologic patients and the methods of collecting and delivering that information to the physician are presented.

Concepts of GTDs: an oncology workstation.

In Germany, computer systems have been used in hospital cancer registries for more than 10 years. Primarily, they have been used for retrospective documentation of malignant tumors, and these resources have rarely been tapped for the support of follow up care and statistical evaluation. In response to the increasing availability of PC-systems and growing interest in computer networks, we have decided to design and develop a new oncology information system which covers two important aspects of oncology care: (1) the documentation of all relevant data items for the cancer registries, and (2) the routine support of the physician in the clinical treatment process. In this paper we discuss the design and concept of this oncology information system as well as experiences gained during the development process are discussed. Future plans to further extend the system to a comprehensive oncology workstation are presented.