About SCARD

10 Years Caring About You

What is SCARD?

The Skin Cancer Audit & Research Database (SCARD) Surgical Audit Project was conceived in 2006 by Cliff Rosendahl as a surgical log designed for doctors who treat skin malignancies. It was created to facilitate the easy recording of useful data at the time of treatment, allowing skin cancer treatment to be tracked more effectively.

By collecting data on the diagnostic and therapeutic process, SCARD helps practitioners to optimise patient safety and provide feedback on their own performance. The SCARD platform is designed specifically for skin cancer practitioners working in primary care.

With the continued use of SCARD as a self-auditing tool, practitioners can track their performance and improvement over time.

SCARD is a structured surgical audit log designed for doctors and health professionals who treat skin malignancies in primary care.

It provides a systematic method of recording lesions, specimens, procedures, and outcomes to support clinical governance, diagnostic accuracy, and continuous quality improvement.

SCARD is typically used by:

  • General Practitioners
  • Skin cancer doctors
  • Nurses and nurse practitioners
  • Pathologists
  • Dermatologists
  • Plastic surgeons
  • Other health care professionals

The system is purpose-built for clinicians managing skin malignancies in a primary care setting.

What does SCARD do?

SCARD enables the structured recording of:

  • New lesions and specimens
  • Histopathology results
  • Definitive treatments and excisions
  • Re-excisions and follow-up care

In addition to specimen tracking, SCARD generates a confidential clinical audit report on the user’s own data.

This report provides detailed breakdowns, including:

  • Diagnosis distribution
  • Number of lesions sampled to detect one melanoma
  • Percentage of new lesions treated to exclude non-melanoma skin cancer that are malignant
  • Diagnostic accuracy
  • Percentage of definitive managements achieving adequate margins
  • Other clinically relevant audit metrics

These reports are designed to assist clinicians in reviewing performance, identifying trends, and supporting professional development and governance requirements.

Pooled Reporting (Optional)

SCARD also allows users to upload deidentified data to the SCARD website.

Participation is entirely optional.

Where data is contributed, SCARD generates reports using pooled results for comparison. This enables clinicians to compare their own confidential audit outcomes with aggregated results.

Individual clinician data remains confidential. Only deidentified pooled reporting is used for comparison purposes.

Fees, Trial Access and Continued Access Mode

Subscription Pricing

SCARD operates on a simple subscription model:

  • AU$30 per month
  • AU$300 per year

Fees apply from 1 March 2026.

30-Day Full Access Trial

Once you have registered, your account will receive a 30-day full-access trial upon activation.

During the trial, users have unrestricted access to all system features, including:

  • Adding new patients
  • Recording new lesions and specimens
  • Logging excisions and pathology results
  • Managing re-excisions and follow-up care
  • Generating reports
  • Exporting data

This allows clinicians to complete a full audit cycle before making a subscription decision.

If a subscription is not activated at the end of the 30-day trial, access to existing data is retained, and the account automatically moves to Continued Access Mode.

Continued Access Mode

In Continued Access Mode, users can:

  • Access all existing patient records
  • View and update existing cases
  • Record re-excisions and follow-up procedures
  • Upload documents to existing records
  • Export data

However, users cannot:

  • Add new patients
  • Create new lesions or specimens

This ensures continued access to historical audit data while restricting new case entry, and full access can be restored at any time by activating a subscription.

Further information about Continued Access Mode can be found in this post.

Existing Users

Existing users who choose not to subscribe will retain access to all historical data and specimens through Continued Access Mode.

This means that existing cases can continue to be managed; however, new entries cannot be added once the subscription model commences unless a subscription is active.