Abstract
ROGAD (Radiation Oncology Greater Area Database), a multi-institutional database, was developed, has been run and maintained by the Japanese Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (JASTRO) since 1993. Unfortunately, its maintenance and operation is terminated now. This paper clarifies the reason of the termination, and proposes next activity of JASTRO. The resulted technological development and know-how of database administration/operation are disclosed here along with the list of literatures published. Main topics are: methodology of clinical data collection, following-up, archiving, analyzing, retrieving, and presentation as well as clinical evaluations57)-62). Effort was made to link as many existed databases in radiotherapy facilities as possible in Japan by means of developing software for automatic protocol conversion of clinical data and automatic minimization of deterioration of quality of clinical data. Employing concept of virtual private network, an attempt was made to run virtual private database for each radiotherapy facility. Also a method of follow-up data collection was developed and reduced operational tasks utilizing web mail. Basic function of ROGAD system is to collect many data elements of various kinds/attributes, analyze those data elements in many hierarchy structures, and store those data for presenting new understandings. This paper describes results of research and development applying the ROGAD database system to other medical practices. Examples are time study of tasks/jobs of medical professions such as nurses in large scaled hospitals, analyses of labor cost and optimization of task/job distribution to each department and section in a hospital. Quality and level of tasks/jobs of medical professions are also observed, analyzed and presented. Another example is the learning system for optimization of radiation therapy planning. Authors cordially thank each facility who contributed to compile clinical data. Authers also thank to members of ROGAD office who have been engaged to quick decision making on software development, database operation/administration and clinical data evaluation.
