Synoptic Reporting for Pathology
PALGA is the national pathology foundation of the Netherlands. It is empowered by the Dutch national health system to provide a mandatory synoptic reporting application that is used by all pathologists in the country working out of approximately 50 regional pathology labs.
The LogicNets application uses PALGA-modeled decisioning to enable pathologists to efficiently capture critical reporting information and ensure accurate, complete report submissions. Within a year of deploying LogicNets and replacing prior systems, there was a clear improvement in user satisfaction ratings from pathologists, a major increase in reporting quality, and a significant boost to downstream pathology research.
An article in the May 2019 Journal of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) reported clear evidence of improved patient outcomes and survival as a direct result of using Standardized Structured Reporting (SSR) — the less technical term for the “Synoptic Reporting” implemented exclusively through LogicNets.
The study analyzed over 70,000 colorectal cancer cases in the Netherlands, one third of which represented work performed using SSR. It traced SSR-supported cases alongside reference and alternative “narrative reporting” processes, linking them to patient outcome records in the country’s two largest registries — the NKR (Dutch Cancer Registration)and the DRCA (Dutch ColoRectal Audit).
The research credited the measurable increase in completeness and accuracy of SSR-acquired patient data with significant improvements in adjuvant therapy administration and patient survival rates.