Analysis and Curation of the Database of a Colo-Rectal Cancer Screening Program

Abstract

Data collection in health programs databases is prone to errors that might hinder its use to identify risk indicators and to support optimal decision making in health services. This is the case, in colo-rectal cancer (CRC) screening programs, when trying to optimize the cut-off point to select the patients who will undergo a colonoscopy, especially when having insufficient offer of colonoscopies or temporary excessive demand. It is necessary therefore to establish “good practice” guidelines for data collection, management and analysis. With the aim of improving the redesign of a regional CRC screening program platform, we performed an exhaustive analysis of the data collected, proposing a set of recommendations for its correct maintenance. We also carried out the curation of the available data in order to finally have a clean source of information that would allow proper future analyses. We present here the result of such study, showing the importance of the design of the database and of the user interface to avoid redundancies keeping consistency and checking known correlations, with the final aim of providing quality data that permit to take correct decisions.