By: Mohamad Bydon and Fred Meyer
Many health care systems have a valuable asset that they are underutilizing: clinical registries. These database systems collect information from each patient encounter, including comorbidities, surgical procedures, post-operative complications, and patient-reported outcomes via standardized surveys.
But they often are not being fully used. If select information from registries is displayed through dashboards, they can serve as tools to provide a comprehensive overview of a clinic’s performance in terms of quality, cost, and volume data for various procedures. Such registries can be used to identify areas in need of improvement, gain more favorable terms in contract negotiations with payers, and enhance patient-physician discussions and decision-making. The Mayo Clinic’s Department of Neurologic Surgery did just that.
