Improving Data-Sharing for Cancer Surveillance Through the National Interstate Data Exchange Application System (N-IDEAS): Innovations from CDC/NPCR

Authors:

Reda Wilson (Presenter)
CDC

Kevin Zhang, ICF
Shailendra Bhavsar, ICF
Jing Guo, ICF
Joseph Rogers, CDC
Sandy Jones, CDC

Public Health Statement: State cancer registries collect cancer data on individuals diagnosed or treated in their state regardless of the individual’s state of residence. To ensure complete case ascertainment, data exchange in a secure environment between cancer registries is an important part of registry operations to serve the cancer control and prevention efforts.

Purpose: This presentation will describe the development, design, and implementation of the secure data exchange N-IDEAS, an innovative tool to facilitate, monitor, and track data exchanges.

Methods/Approach: Technical architecture; an n-tier solution with .Net technologies, XML web services, NIST security standards, Advanced Encryption Standards, and Capacity Maturity Model Integration (CMMI); and deployment history will be presented. User feedback and evaluation have been collected through both the pilot and production deployment cycles. Visualization tools will be used to display deployment coverages and changes.

Results: The project provides a user-friendly secure data exchange system currently used by 35 states, 1 U.S. territory, and 2 hospitals: MD Anderson Cancer Center and St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The presentation will include a summary of the CMMI approach and a demonstration of how the system works in the registry setting, including the expansion to medical institutions.

Conclusions/Implications: N-IDEAS is an innovative product widely used to help cancer registries improve their data collection and operational efforts. The system is not limited to exchanging cancer surveillance data files and has the potential to meet other local, regional, and national public health needs where secure data transfer may be required.