For clinicians and institutions
Clinician and institution participation
The Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry – NSW (PCOR-NSW) is a state-based registry and will seek participation of all NSW Local Health Districts public hospitals, as well as private hospitals and clinicians operating in private consulting rooms.
In order for a complete and accurate profile of care provided to men with prostate cancer it is imperative that population-based data be collected. This means that every patient treated by every doctor in NSW will have the capacity to contribute to the Registry.
What does participation involve?
Participation by clinicians and institutions:
- assisting with the identification of men living with prostate cancer
- allowing the PCOR-NSW to contact patients to invite them to participate
- working with PCOR-NSW staff to arrange a convenient time to collect data on men who have not opted out or for whom the PCOR-NSW has a waiver of consent
- providing a clinical stage to the PCOR-NSW if it is not recorded in your patient's medical record
Participation is voluntary; however, the more institutions and clinicians that support the PCOR-NSW, the more effective it will be at ensuring the best possible health service to men with prostate cancer in NSW
Benefits of participation
The data from the PCOR-NSW has many significant impacts in research, development, and education and will provide the following benefits:
- Provide a cross-sectional view of multiple clinical and demographic aspects of prostate cancer that may be studied in detail using targeted, prospective study design or using health statistics.
- Identify whether clinicians are managing the disease in accordance with the principles of evidence-based practice.
- Collect up-to-date information about patterns of care and enables oversight of changing patterns of disease demographic and management.
- Enable clinicians to compare their own patient population and therapeutic management with that of other clinicians (NB. No clinician identifying information will be released by the PCOR-NSW).
- May be used to assist in the design of clinical trials, including identifying questions for study.
- Provide clinicians and institutions with mortality and morbidity data associated with various risk and treatment groups, both for their own patients and the wider cohort of men with prostate cancer.
- May be used as an educational tool for clinicians and students.
Measuring quality of care
Quality of care can be assessed by reviewing structures, processes and outcome of care.
The PCOR-NSW will collect clinical indicators that best reflect best practice guidelines and outcomes of care, such as:
- volume of patients according to treatment type at individual institutions
- surgical outcomes
- management of metastatic disease
- patient centered structures within institutions
- availability of services/treatments to patients
- adherence to evidence based guidelines for diagnosis and treatment
- completeness and availability of clinical documentation
- patient outcomes
- patient reported outcomes
Participating institutions
The following institutions (in alphabetical order) are currently contributing data to the PCOR-NSW:
- Armidale Hospital
- Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital
- Bathurst Base Hospital
- Belmont Hospital
- Blacktown Hospital
- Calvary Mater Hospital
- Campbelltown Hospital
- Chris O’Brien Lifehouse
- Cobar District Hospital
- Coffs Harbour Health Campus
- Coonabarabran District Hospital
- Dubbo Hospital (View all sites)
If you're a clinician or facility that has not yet been approached but would like to participate in the initiative, please contact us at cinsw-pcornsw@health.nsw.gov.au.
Participating clinicians
- Dr Diana Adams
- Dr Nariman Ahmadi
- Dr Gias Ahmed
- Dr Paul Ainsworth
- Dr Mohan Arianayagam
- Dr Nader Awad
- Dr Bavanth Balakrishnar
- Dr Simon Bariol
- Dr Paul Bergamin
- Dr Philip Bergersen
- A/Prof Martin Berry
- A/Prof Andrew Brooks
- Dr David J G Brown
- Dr Joseph Bucci
- Dr Alistair Cameron-Strange
- Dr Venu Chalasani
- Dr Matthew Chan
- Dr Christopher Chee (View all clinicians)
Frequently asked questions by clinicians and institutions
This page will be updated on a regular basis. If your specific question is not answered below, please contact us at cinsw-pcornsw@health.nsw.gov.au
- Assisting with the identification of men living with prostate cancer
- Allowing the Registry to contact your patients to invite their participation
- PCOR-NSW staff arranging a convenient time to collect data on patients who have not opted out or for whom a waiver of consent has been obtained
- Having a benchmarking report sent to you outlining your quality indicators results compared to your peer facilities/clinicians
- providing a clinical stage to the registry if it is not recorded in your patients medical record
Your contributions will enable us to better understand and manage prostate cancer across the population.
You will receive risk adjusted benchmarking reports which will provide assurance that you are delivering a high quality service to your patients or assist you in identifying areas for improvement.
These reports will be blinded i.e. only the results of your facility/practice will be identified and the identity of your peers will be concealed.
Participation will also provide you with Continuing Medical Education (CME) points, however, it will be your responsibility to register your participation in the NSW PCCR initiative with your accreditation board/college.
Participation is voluntary, however, we strongly encourage you to participate as the more facilities and clinicians that participate the more effective the Registry will be at ensuring the best possible health service to men with prostate cancer across the state.
The Registry will collect identifiable data such as your name, specialty, registration number and details about your practice locations.
In addition to this, the Registry will collect data about patients under your care for prostate cancer. Patient details will be obtained from the NSW Cancer Registry and patient medical records at your facility or practice. Patient data includes demographic and contact details to enable patient follow-up; next of kin/contact person for patient (where available), diagnosis, clinical management, treatment and details of relapse and recurrence where applicable
Only authorised personnel will have access to the database and will have signed confidentiality agreements for non-disclosure of information prior to acessing any information.
Identified data will not be released to any third party and any requests for data will need to comply with the data access policy in place for PCOR-NSW and where applicable obtain ethics approval.
Information collected into PCOR-NSW is housed on an ISO certified database (bank level security). Only authorised personnel will have access to the database and will have signed confidentiality agreements for non-disclosure of information.
The PCOR-NSW, as part of the Cancer Institute NSW, is bound in the collection, handling, use and disclosure of the information it receives, by the existing privacy regimen of NSW Health. The main legislative provisions are contained in the NSW Health Records Information Privacy Act 2002 (HRIPA).
Data collected by PCOR-NSW will be owned by the Cancer Institute NSW. Data transferred to the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry Australia and New Zealand will be de-identified.
Benchmarking reports will be risk-adjusted and blinded so that only the participating clinician or facility to whom the report has been sent to will be identifiable.
It will not be possible to ascertain the results of other participating facilities or clinicians in the benchmarking reports provided.
Any reporting of data by PCOR-NSW or Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry Australia and New Zealand will be de-identified and aggregated and it will not be possible to distinguish the identity of participating clinicians or facilities.
Identified data will not be released to any third party and any requests for data will strictly adhere to the PCOR-NSW Data Access Policy and where applicable require ethics approval.
Participation will not cost you anything and you will not receive any payment for your involvement.
Please note that the Prostate Cancer Outcomes Registry – NSW (PCOR-NSW) was formerly known as the NSW Prostate Clinical Cancer Registry (PCCR).
Your correspondence from the registry may reflect the former name. We apologise for the confusion this may cause and encourage you to contact us should you wish to discuss it further. This name change is necessary for improved alignment with other participating jurisdictions across Australia and New Zealand.
