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Table 2 Information on reviewed documents related to the previous development of the electronic template for colorectal cancer histopathology reporting

From: Implementation and use of electronic synoptic cancer reporting: an explorative case study of six Norwegian pathology laboratories

Stage

Number of documents

Key information elements

Project initiation

6

Initiated as a response to various governmental requests for quality improvement in the healthcare sector.

Project planning

6

• Engagement of the Directorate of Health and the regional health authorities, which own Norwegian public hospitals, with respect to project aims and funding.

• Targeted information about the project to all Norwegian pathology departments and individual pathologists.

• Targeted engagement of national standardization agency and selected pathology departments.

• There were no written plans for how to facilitate implementation of the template in pathology departments. The underlying assumption was that this was not an issue as the template was fully integrated into the software systems already being used by all pathology departments in Norway.

• Integration of pathology software systems (containing the template) with other software systems used by the hospitals was not addressed.

• Specifications on graphical layout of template printouts were not addressed.

Project execution

36

• Targeted engagement of pathology departments participating in the project, various medical societies/ interest groups, and vendors with respect to template development and other project related issues.

• National standardization agency wrote protocol with guideline to be used by vendors in their software development of the template.

• Graphical layout of the template on printouts had been discussed in one project meeting where both vendors and participating departments were represented, but it had been decided that this issue could be addressed by the departments themselves as the software systems allowed local modifications.

Project monitoring and controlling

9

Targeted use of three pathology departments in the testing, modification, and approval phase of the template developed by the vendors.

Project closing

2

Formal reports submitted to the Directorate of Health and the Board of the Norwegian Society of Pathology.

*Daily operations

0

There were no written plans for follow-up on project outcome (that is, successful implementation and use of the template) after formal project closing.

  1. *This denotes issues related to maintenance, modifications and/or further development after a project is officially closed.
  2. The documents are grouped according to the multistage project and daily operations model illustrated in Figure 1. Supplementary information details in italic address issues raised by key informants in semi-structured interviews thereby causing a secondary review of the original project documents.