Pharma

Biography

Paul Seegers completed his education in Pathology and Cytology in 1985 at the Dr. Struycken Insitute in Etten-Leur and University of Applied Sciences Leiden in The Netherlands. Worked more 25 years in different pathology laboratories as Head of the department of Cytology and as Head IT & Quality Assurance department. Since 2011 as advisor and (inter)national expert on Synoptic Reporting at PALGA Foundation. Is a member of the committee of the Dutch Pathology Society for population screening. And co-author of the multidisciplinary guideline “Cervical Cytology”.

Abstract

The detail and accuracy of pathological reporting is becoming increasingly recognised as important with the introduction of Synoptic Reporting (SR). In the Netherlands we started with the development of SR for ColoRectum cancer and for Breast cancer late 2008, based on multidisciplinary guidelines, WHO Classifications and later in 2011 based on the minimal datasets of the International Collaboration on Cancer Reporting. PALGA Foundation develops, distributes nationwide and maintains all the national Pathology Protocols for Histology, Cytology and Molecular Testing, in total 27. All the pathology laboratories in the Netherlands are connected through the PALGA network, this makes distribution and maintaining on a daily bases possible.

In 2012 PALGA developed a complete new framework for the use of SR in daily practice PALGA Protocol Module (PPM), this because already 20-25% daily workload of a pathologist is done with Synoptic Reporting. With the PPM is possible to combine different protocols in one pathology report, for example a Lung resection protocol combined with the Molecular Testing protocol,  so the clinician will receive one complete pathology report.

Through the accuracy of data elements of SR, the results are very suitable for different registries. In the Netherlands we have direct connection with the National Cancer Registry, the Dutch Institute for Clinical Auditing for quality controls and with the National Institute for Public Health and the Enviroment for population screening on colon cancer and Cervical cancer. Through interoperability the pathology data are directly filling these registries without intervention of data managers, this saves time and registration burden.