NCRA Conference Preview

Golden Opportunities for Education and Professional Growth by the Bay
By Barb Collins, CTR

The National Cancer Registrars Association (NCRA) will hold its 39th annual educational conference May 30 to June 2 in San Francisco. The 2013 conference theme—”Golden Opportunities for Education and Professional Growth by the Bay”—captures the NCRA’s commitment to providing registrars with in-depth technical training and opportunities to develop management and leadership skills to advance the profession.

Like many health information professionals, cancer registrars are faced with a rapidly changing work environment. Advancements and medical breakthroughs make it a challenge to keep current. The NCRA’s annual conference is designed to provide access to high-quality training on critical industry topics. The concurrent sessions are divided into three topic areas: central registry, hospital registry, and professional development, and include a wide range of topics, allowing registrars to customize their educational needs.

Keynote speaker Robert Hiatt, MD, PhD, is chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His presentation, “Using Cancer Registry Data to Define the Research Agenda for Cancer Centers,” will address new National Cancer Institute (NCI) guidelines requiring cancer centers to examine the cancer burden in the geographic region where they are located and develop, test, and implement effective interventions.

Other sessions of interest include the following:

“Legislation and Regulations Impacting Healthcare Policy in 2013”: Matthew Farber, MA, director of provider economics and public policy for the Association of Community Cancer Centers, will review recent regulations and legislation that will impact health care delivery and oncology care, including the Affordable Care Act, Medicare expansion, and sequestration.

“Cancer Registry Professional: The Paradigm Shift”: The NCRA has created the Medical Registry Taskforce to help further its goal to identify a common category that better defines the work performed by cancer registrars under the US Department of Labor Standard Occupational Classification. Broadening the scope of the registry profession to encompass all types of registries supports the educational needs of multiple registry professionals and provides a combined force to address medical registry issues. The panel discussion will provide an interactive forum to help registrars understand the importance of this initiative.

“Collaboration Between Local, State, and National Cancer Registries Provides Significant Insights for Breast Cancer Treatment”: Hope Rugo, MD, director of breast medical oncology and clinical trials education at UCSF, and Katherine Serrurier, breast oncology clinical research assistant at UCSF, will discuss their research to evaluate the use of different chemotherapy regimens for early-stage breast cancer using breast cancer cases from the UCSF Cancer Registry, the California Cancer Registry, and the National Comprehensive Center Network Breast Outcomes Database. Like Hiatt’s keynote, this session highlights how the data collected by registrars affects cancer research and the search for effective treatments.

In addition to a focus on training, the conference provides an opportunity for cancer registrars to network and learn about new products and services. The exhibit hall will have more than 30 vendors and will include special demonstrations of the NCRA’s newly launched Center for Cancer Registry Education.

This year also is a time for celebration because 2013 marks the 30th anniversary of the Certified Tumor Registrar (CTR) credential. The NCRA will acknowledge this important milestone at special events throughout the conference.

For more information, visit www.ncra-usa.org/conference.

— Barb Collins, CTR, is the 2013 program committee chair for the National Cancer Registrars Association.