Wales launches histopathology recording system

The first reports, recording bowel screening information, were created with a template developed by the Chirp (Cancer Histopathology Reporting Project) team at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr Tydfil, Mid Glamorgan. Informing Healthcare said that previously the information was recorded in an unstructured text format that made it difficult to analyse. It also used to take a week to get the report from the lab into the Cancer Network Information System Cymru, but that the transmission is instant with the new recording system. "The lab in Prince Charles has access to Chirp to create the template/report and this is fed into the local laboratory information management system," a spokesperson for Informing Healthcare told Smart Healthcare.com "It is then fed into the Cancer Network Information System Cymru, which was also developed in-house. "It also flags up whether required information has been entered into the form. If is isn't filled in, the histopathologist can't go any further in forwarding the document." The histopathology reports are being fed automatically into relevant electronic record systems, instead of being faxed or posted. The recording system will be implemented across Wales at the end of 2010.