National Breast Cancer Audit
Breast Surgeons of Australia and NZ

The National Breast Cancer Audit
is directed by the Breast Surgeons
of Australia and New Zealand Inc.

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Quick links

Participating surgeon
Enter patient information into the online portal.
Surgeons who are unable to enter data via the portal can print our paper forms and post or fax to the audit office in Adelaide.

Breast cancer patient
Looking for a surgeon who is committed to improving their practice by participating in audit?
See our participating surgeons list.
For easy to read information about research based on audit data try our research summaries page.

Research
A list of published research using audit data can be found on our publications page.

Queries
If you have a specific question on participation or data entry, try our frequently asked questions page. For further information and assistance, contact the helpdesk. 

Background of the National Breast Cancer Audit

Who we are
The National Breast Cancer Audit (NBCA) is a clinical audit developed with the aim of improving quality of care by surgeons for patients with early breast cancer in Australia and New Zealand. It was originally initiated as a pilot study in 1998 and has been running continuously now for over 10 years.

The database currently contains over 100,000 episodes of breast cancer, with over 250 surgeons contributing data each year from across Australian and New Zealand.

The NBCA provides surgeons with a self-audit tool to monitor their own surgical practice in relation to evidence based standards, as well as participating in a quality improvement cycle. The data is also used in a de-identified and aggregated form for research into breast cancer treatment in Australia and New Zealand. More information about this research can be found on our publications page.

We openly encourage any surgeon in Australia and New Zealand treating any cases of breast cancer to join the audit.

Benefits of participation
The NBCA is a free service with many benefits for surgeons:

  • a secure online interface that:
    • stores patient data
    • provides an instant summary of the surgeon's breast cancer cases, treatments and overall performance against key performance indicators
    • allows surgeons to export all of their cases to Microsoft Excel for personal analyses
    • allows surgeons to benchmark themselves against peers
  • access to annual reports, newsletters and publications that are generated from the data collected by the NBCA
  • approved audit activity in the College's professional development program.
  • acknowledgement of participation through an annual certificate and through the participating surgeons list. This list is promoted to breast cancer patients through the websites of both Breast Cancer Network Australia and Cancer Australia.

For more information on how to participate, contact the helpdesk.

Governance and structure
As of late 2010, the audit has been directed and funded by the Breast Surgeons of Australia and New Zealand (BreastSurgANZ), a specialty society for surgeons treating breast cancer. Management of the audit continues to be provided through the Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures - Surgical (ASERNIP-S) in the Research, Audit and Academic Surgery Division of the College, with the office located in Adelaide, South Australia.

The audit has also been declared a Quality Assurance Activity under the Commonwealth Health Insurance (Quality Assurance Confidentiality) Amendment Act (1992) in Australia and has been declared a protected quality assurance activity under the Health Practitioner's Competence Assurance Act 2003 in New Zealand. The purpose of this legislation is to ensure that information that becomes available as a result of the activity can not be disclosed, other than for general reporting purposes (i.e. annual reports, research papers).

Downloads

Data entry forms
The full dataset form includes all fields collected by the NBCA, both mandatory and optional, thus allowing the full research and record keeping potential of the audit to be utilised.
Full Dataset Form (PDF 90Kb, January 2011)
Follow Up Only Form (PDF 44Kb, January 2011)
Minimum dataset (MDS) forms provide a shorter alternative to the full dataset while including all data items necessary for threshold calculations on key performance indicators.
Invasive Cases MDS Form (PDF 47Kb, January 2011)
Ductal Carcinoma In Situ Cases MDS Form (PDF 42Kb, January 2011)

Patient information
All patients to be entered into the audit need to receive the following information sheet.
Patient information and opt-out consent (PDF 211Kb, March 2011)

Useful documents to aid data entry
Online Data Entry Manual (PDF 776Kb, December 2011) new
Data Dictionary (PDF 530Kb, April 2011)
Instructions for updating incomplete episodes (PDF 37Kb, June 2010)

Data release
Data Release Policy (Word 53Kb, 2006)
Data Release Request Form (PDF 266Kb, August 2011) new

Reports
Reports on NBCA progress
Annual Report - An excerpt from the ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2010 (PDF 108Kb)
Annual Report - An excerpt from the ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2009 (PDF 125Kb)
Annual Report - An excerpt from the ASERNIP-S Annual Report 2008 (Word 53Kb)
National Breast Cancer Audit Progress Report -March 2006 (PDF 595Kb)
National Breast Cancer Audit progress report - May 2005 (PDF 547Kb)
Process for managing outliers in breast cancer surgery - March 2005 (PDF 233Kb)

Reports using NBCA data
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report 2008 (PDF 895Kb)
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report 2007 (PDF 351Kb)
Report on Threshold Levels for 2006 Data (members only)
National Breast Cancer Audit Public Health Monitoring Report 2006 (PDF 538Kb)

NBCA newsletter
Volume 6 Issue 2 - December 2011 (PDF 164Kb) new
Volume 6 Issue 1 - May 2011 (PDF 80Kb)
Volume 5 Issue 1 - December 2010 (PDF 80Kb)
Volume 4 Issue 2 - December 2009 (PDF 131Kb)
Volume 4 Issue 1 - April 2009 (PDF 1.4Mb)

Contact

The National Breast Cancer Audit is managed by the Morbidity Audits Department of the Research, Audit and Academic Surgery Division of the College.

For further information or assistance, contact the helpdesk:

National Breast Cancer Audit
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons
199 Ward Street
North Adelaide SA 5006 Australia

Telephone: +61 8 8219 0918
Fax: +61 8 8219 0999
Email: breast.audit@surgeons.org.

Last Updated : Wednesday, January 04, 2012
© Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. All rights reserved.