Health Information System in Population-Based Organized Service Screening for Colorectal Cancer

Health information system supporting population-based organized service screening for colorectal cancer (CRC) is critically important for delivery, surveillance, and management of screening services in order to aid health professionals improving the quality assurance and enhancing the feasibility of evaluating the screening program. Health information system embedded within a service-screening program include the infrastructure of the screening program, availability and comprehensiveness of screening data, and the sophisticated and precise data analysis with adjustment for potential biases. The infrastructure of the screening process includes three phases, pre-screening, screening, and post-screening phase. A centralized screening database linking various kinds of databases together from pre-screening phase is tremendously helpful for planning population-based organized service screening. During the screening phase, the key performance index should be collected for screening including the screening rate, positivity rate, diagnostic exam (colonoscopy) rate, positive predictive rate, detection rate, and interval cancer rate. Information provided from post-screening phase included surveillance of adenoma, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness evaluation, and personalized strategies for colorectal cancer screening. Systematic health information system for population-based organized service screening is conducive to evidence-based screening policy beyond randomized controlled trial.