Investor Presentaiton
Cancer staging project
Cancer is a major cause of illness and death in Australia, with 14,781 Western
Australians diagnosed with cancer in 2020. When patients are diagnosed with
cancer the process of staging is conducted to determine how far the cancer
has grown and spread, enabling clinicians to provide the most appropriate
treatment options.
In 2022-23, the department, WA Cancer and Palliative Care Network Clinical
Implementation Unit, and Curtin University continued to develop a 'stage of cancer
at diagnosis' data collection for selected cancers. The project aims to determine
the methodology required to establish the collection of patient cancer staging
data. It also involves engagement with key stakeholders across health, academic,
and non-government sectors to ensure information collected is fit for purpose,
accurate, and aligned with national and international health data classifications.
The work is critical in understanding early cancer diagnosis, informing treatment,
and measuring whether variation in survival is due to earlier detection or improved
treatment outcomes.
Since 2019, the cancer staging project team has focused on progressing the
collection of 'stage at diagnosis' of breast and colorectal cancers using new
artificial intelligence technologies; natural language processing and machine
learning. This enables efficiencies by developing and automating routine medical
data collection and assisting in clinical classification and staging of cancers
from patient records. Funding received from the Australian Government's Health
Innovation Fund enabled the project team in 2022-23 to develop population-
based cutaneous melanoma cancer staging business rules and collect 'stage at
diagnosis' data for all 2019 and 2020 melanoma cancers within the project scope.
Detailed collection manuals and documentation have also been developed to
support the project's work, and engagement with other jurisdictions has occurred
to share WA's learnings and to gather feedback from other states and territories.
Through this work WA is becoming known nationally as an active leader in cancer
staging and expert in artificial intelligence development to improve healthcare data.
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Contents
About us
Significant issues Report on operations Agency performance Operational disclosures
Key performance indicators
• Financial disclosures and compliance • AppendixView entire presentation