Stages of quality control A. Regular quality control measures 1. Every record arriving in the Registry is checked against the National Population Registry for accuracy of its demographic data. The computer program into which disease data are entered contains a built-in series of logical checks that eliminate most of the common keying errors, e.g. assigning a female disease to a man and vice versa, improbable site morphology, etc. The computer system automatically rejects mis-codings. Specific cases of disagreement are discussed by the whole team.
Records arrive from a fixed number of reporting sources.
Each new record is noted and when the periodic summation of records received reveals a drop in the reporting rate from a particular source the matter is investigated with the reporting institute. Since these institutes did not send reports to the Registry, the Registry staff took the initiative to establish contact with them and arrange to collect information on malignant cases which could, after processing, be added to its files. Sometimes the one and only source of data on a case is the death certificate which does not give the date of diagnosis, morphology, staging, and treatment, etc. In such cases the Registry tries to fill in the picture by applying to the doctor or facility who have signed the certificate. The test aimed to locate disagreements between the said variables and between them and the data-source.