Clinical Data Registries: 3 Reasons Why Clinicians Should Participate
Written By: Cheryl Reifsnyder, PhD
A clinical data registry tracks information about the health status of patients and the care they receive over a period. Registries can be focused on a specific diagnosis or condition and cover a wide range of clinical events and diagnoses. Information can be collected in a variety of ways. Most importantly, information from the registry feeds into performance metrics that can help providers distinguish variations in care and improve healthcare quality.1
But why would you want to take the time and effort to participate in a clinical data registry? Read on for three excellent reasons, for both you and your patients.
1. Registry participation can help improve your patients’ treatment
The most important benefit from participation in a registry is that practices and individual clinicians receive helpful data about patients with specific conditions, their treatment, and how they respond over time, both individually and as a group. Physicians can use registries to help their patients select treatments that have tended to work for other, similar patients.1,2
Participating in a registry is also beneficial because registries provide data back to clinicians through feedback reports. These reports contain practice and patient specific data that helps providers validate the quality of care they are providing to their patients. It also helps them to identify opportunities for improvement, allowing them to make more rapid changes to better the quality of care they provide. Since clinical data registries are capturing data beyond the discrete fields in the EHR, the data collection is more robust and more reflective of actual patient care.3-5
2. Registry participation can help drive better medical understanding
Another reason to participate in a clinical data registry is that doing so is likely to help increase medical knowledge of the particular disease or condition the registry focuses on.2 By collecting information about patients, registries can help accelerate clinical discovery, promote collaborative science, and drive advancements in clinical practice toward patient-centered care for important clinical conditions.1,2,4 Information in the registry can also help researchers studying the condition design better research studies to learn more about the disease or condition.2
3. Registry participation can satisfy CMS’ MIPS requirement for eligible clinicians
Participating in a clinical data registry provides another benefit as well: It satisfies one of the requirements for participation in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) program. MIPS is one of two tracks offered by CMS to meet the requirements of the Quality Payment Program (QPP). In this program, practices can earn payment adjustments based on four performance categories:
- Quality
- Improvement activities
- Promoting interoperability
- Cost
Each of these categories generate a weighted score that will contribute to the practice’s overall payment adjustment in 2023 for participation in the 2021 QPP program year.6
One way eligible clinicians can participate in MIPS is through a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR).4,6 A QCDR is a CMS-approved clinical data registry. It must complete a rigorous qualification process; demonstrate clinical expertise in medicine and quality measurement development; and collect medical or clinical data on behalf of MIPS-eligible clinicians. A QCDR tracks patients and diseases or conditions with the goal of generating improvement in the quality of care for that disease or condition.4,6
A QCDR streamlines the collection of data on patients with the condition covered by the registry. In addition, it handles submitting the data for the pertinent MIPS categories to CMS. Data submission takes place using secure, HIPAA-compliant submission methods to maintain security and privacy for the participating patients.2-4
The PINNACLE Registry® and the Diabetes Collaborative Registry®
Veradigm operates two clinical data registries in association with the American College of Cardiology (ACC), an organization dedicated to improving cardiac health in the U.S.3,7 The PINNACLE Registry collects data on patients with coronary artery disease, hypertension, heart failure, and atrial fibrillation. This registry is cardiology’s largest outpatient registry for improving quality of care. The data collected by this registry include:3
- Demographic information for patients with coronary artery disease, hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, and atrial fibrillation
- PINNACLE Registry Program Metrics endorsed by the ACC/American Heart Association (AHA) Task Force on Performance Measures
The Diabetes Collaborative Registry collects data on patients with diabetes type I and type II, prediabetes, and cardiometabolic disease. The data collected by this registry include:3
- Demographic information for patients with diabetes type I and type II and patients with prediabetes
- Diabetes Collaborative Registry Program Metrics endorsed by the ACC/AHA Task Force on Performance Measures
Both registries are enrolling practices from multiple specialties, including:3
- Primary care
- Family care
- Internal medicine
- Endocrinology
- Cardiology
To request that the QCDR reports 2021 MIPS data to CMS on their behalf, a practice must contract with one of the two registries by September 3, 2021 and begin actively submitting data to the registries through their EHR by November 1, 2021. They must also complete a data release consent form permitting the registries to submit data to the CMS on their behalf. To read more about how this works, click here.6
Delivering best practices to the point-of-care
Today, a great deal of new science and medical evidence is constantly being developed, so much that it makes it difficult for physicians and care teams to stay abreast of the latest care information. Veradigm has access to point-of-care platforms in practices across the U.S. By partnering with the ACC, we are able to bring life-saving therapies directly to patients and healthcare providers at the point-of-care.7 For instance, the PINNACLE Registry is working to simplify the latest findings in cardiovascular medicine and make sure that physicians have access to the information they need to make the best decisions for their patients. The Registries partner with the ACC to bring best practices, policies, and ACC-developed guidelines to the point-of-care.3,7
A review of the results from the PINNACLE Registry revealed that, between 2013-2017, the quality of care improved for patients participating in the PINNACLE Registry and that care at participating practices became more standardized. During this same time period, the Registry also contributed to a variety of quality improvement campaigns and contributed to fifty-one peer-reviewed publications.5
As an added benefit, as a part of Veradigm’s partnership with ACC, registry participants gain access to the ACC’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry® suite of clinical toolkits designed to help implement best practice care and address common quality issues. Participants are also able to participate in continuing education programs sponsored by the ACC. (Participants do not need to be members of the ACC to take advantage of either of these programs.)3
Your participation in clinical data registries could help take the quality of care provided by your practice to the next level. Contact Veradigm if you’d like to learn more.
References:
- Patient Outcomes: A User’s Guide Internet 3rd ed. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US); 2014.
- NIH. List of Registries: Frequently Asked Questions. National Institutes of Health. Updated April 15, 2021. Accessed June 18, 2021, https://www.nih.gov/health-information/nih-clinical-research-trials-you/list-registries.
- Clinical Data Registries. Veradigm. Accessed June 18, 2021, https://veradigm.com/clinical-data-registries/.
- Centers for Medicare & Medicaid. Measure Management & You. Accessed June 18, 2021. https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Quality-Initiatives-Patient-Assessment-Instruments/MMS/Downloads/A-Brief-Overview-of-Qualified-Clinical-Data-Registries.pdf
- American College of Cardiology (ACC). PINNACLE Registry Study Shows Improvements in Ambulatory CV Care Processes. American College of Cardiology. Updated January 6, 2020. Accessed June 18, 2021, https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2020/01/06/13/09/pinnacle-registry-study-shows-improvements-in-ambulatory-cv-care-processes.
- MIPS Frequently Asked Questions: Using the PINNACLE and Diabetes Collaborative QCDR for Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) Program. Veradigm. Accessed June 18, 2021, https://veradigm.com/mips-faqs-what-is-mips/.
- Veradigm and the ACC–Delivering Cardiovascular Information to the Point-of-Care. Video. Veradigm. Updated May 20, 2020. Accessed June 19, 2021, https://veradigm.com/delivering-cardiovascular-info-point-of-care-with-acc/.