The first health system to be showcased in our new Health System Success Story series is the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) in Detroit, Michigan. HFHS is one of ERS’s newest partner health systems and they are celebrating a huge milestone! This now CoC Integrated Network was one of the first of two facilities accredited by the CoC. HFHS was first accredited in October of 1931 and is celebrating their 90th continuous year of accreditation.
The HFHS Cancer Registry is led by Lisa Landvogt, CTR, Director of Cancer Data and Accreditation. Lisa began her cancer registry career in 1990 at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey, IL, now part of the UChicago Medicine Health System, receiving CTR certification in 1995. The HFHS cancer registry has 11 full-time employees, accession approximately 8,000 cases a year and are concurrent in their abstracting!
The registry staff was working from home before the pandemic; however, this situation encouraged a permanent remote work setting. Additionally, employees also have workstations on-site if the need ever arises for someone to work at the facility. Lisa states this has been an adjustment, and there are pros and cons, but the team regularly connects and are there for each other for support, questions and to share their expertise with newer members of the team.
In addition to their CoC accreditation, HFHS is NAPBC accredited and working toward their NAPRC accreditation. They currently hold 17 Multidisciplinary Tumor Boards, with 15 being site-specific, as well as molecular and pain management tumor boards. The registry gets a multitude of data requests for clinical research outcomes data, accreditation support and grant related information. The registry also partners with other HFHS oncology partners in the areas of community outreach and prevention. HFHS has most recently entered a 30-year partnership with Michigan State University for research projects. Their joint vision is to integrate the strength of both institutions to advance patient care, education, research and innovation, while discovering and advancing a new standard of health to transform life.
HFHS’s cancer registry is working with the ERS team in taking the next steps toward data integration and automation from a multitude of source systems, including EMR, radiation and medical oncology, and pathology data. They also have a very robust data warehouse used by the clinical research teams and a variety of other sources. Lisa states that automation and data integration is the next step forward for cancer registries and health systems as a whole. With cancer programs continuously evolving, Lisa sees the future as very bright and will expand the bandwidth of registry knowledge to showcase “what we can provide and what we can contribute.”
When asked what the driving force was behind their decision to partner with ERS as their cancer registry software provider, Lisa stated that one of the main missions of both HFHS and ERS is innovation and they felt that ERS would be a great fit as a health system partner. She stressed that they diligently did their homework, but in the end, it was a unanimous team decision. Lisa and the registry staff have been extremely satisfied with the ERS onboarding, implementation, and training processes! And they most appreciated “no hiccups” along the way!
Lisa says her registry staff is incredible. They are loyal, dedicated and each of them bring something unique to the table. She is impressed with their attention to detail, autonomy, and problem-solving skills. The registry frequently works with the NCRA Mentoring Program as well as local colleges with new hires and in their support of students. Lisa feels the HFHS cancer registry is blessed to have such a remarkable staff.
Please join us in congratulating HFHS on their 90-year CoC Accreditation anniversary!