Nebraska Cancer Registry Earns 22nd Consecutive Gold Certificate

OMAHA - In 1997, the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR) instituted a program that reviewed member registries for their ability to produce complete, accurate and timely data. Annually for the past 22 years, the Nebraska Cancer Registry (State Tumor Registry) has responded to this call for data from NAACCR. 

The Nebraska Cancer Registry at Methodist Hospital has earned its 22nd Gold Certificate from the NAACCR. This makes the Nebraska Cancer Registry one of just five central registries in North America that has been able to achieve and maintain the Gold Certificate consecutively for 22 years. In addition, the Nebraska Cancer Registry has been recognized by the National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) as a Registry of Excellence.  

The Nebraska Cancer Registry was created by the Nebraska Unicameral in 1986 and began collecting cancer data in 1987. The purpose of the registry is to gather data that describe how many Nebraska residents are diagnosed with cancer, what types of cancer they have, how far the disease has spread at the time of diagnosis, what types of treatment they receive and how long they survive after diagnosis.

“The work being done by the Nebraska Cancer Registry is so vital to health care organizations and providers, not only in Nebraska but throughout the United States and Canada,” said Julie Nielsen, Nebraska Cancer Registry coordinator. “It is the information we gather that helps the medical community continue their fight against this horrible disease. Our team is proud of the work we do, and to be honored for it for the 22nd straight year is tremendous.”

Joining Nielsen on the Nebraska Cancer Registry staff at Methodist Hospital are Adrienne Bohnenkamp, QA coordinator; and John Werthmann, Megan McClellan and Mary Lein, tumor abstractors.    

Cancer registries that meet the gold standard for registry certification have achieved the highest NAACCR standard for complete, accurate and timely data to calculate standard incidence statistics for the year reviewed. The assessment is repeated annually, and the recognition only pertains to a single year of data.

To achieve NAACCR Gold Certification, the data from a cancer registry must meet all of the following criteria:

• Case ascertainment has achieved 95% or higher completeness.
• A death certificate is the only source for identification of fewer than 3% of reported cancer cases.
• Fewer than 0.1 percent duplicate case reports are in the file.
• All data variables used to create incidence statistics by cancer type, sex, race, age and county are 100 percent error-free.
• Less than 2 percent of the case reports in the file are missing meaningful information on age, sex and county.
• Less than 3 percent of the cases in the file are missing meaningful information on race (U.S. only).
• The file is submitted to NAACCR for evaluation within 23 months of the close of the diagnosis year under review.