RCRS Data Submission Update

The CoC leadership appreciates the programs that have been submitting new and updated analytic cases on a monthly basis to the Rapid Cancer Reporting System (RCRS), as we continue to transition away from the National Cancer Database (NCDB) annual Call for Data. The goals of this change are to reduce the amount of lag time between patient diagnoses and having their data included in hospital and national reports; reduce the amount of redundant work for hospitals; and to conduct CoC site visits on NCDB data standards and quality measures a full calendar year earlier than previous years. 

To accommodate the transition away from the Call for Data, Standard 6.4: RCRS: Data Submission will be revised. It is anticipated that Standard 6.4 will require that the case count submitted by December 31 of a given year equals or exceeds 90% of the average of the total case counts from the previous three diagnosis years. To prepare for these future requirements, refer to the Submission Compliance Report in the RCRS platform for more information about your hospital’s current state. Site visits in 2025 will continue to assess a hospital’s 6.4 compliance based on their participation in the March Call for Data in 2024, not the draft standard described above. 

For those programs that were not able to meet their submission threshold by the December 31, 2024 cutoff, this is a reminder to submit any remaining diagnosis year 2023 cases to RCRS before March 31, 2025, so that this patient data will be included in your personalized NCDB reports as well as our national research data sets.

Contact NCDB@facs.org with any questions.