De-identified patient information pulled from electronic health records at 11 healthcare systems serves as the basis for a diabetes registry shared between providers, according to a study published recently in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Preventing Chronic Disease journal. The registry--the Surveillance, Prevention, and Management of Diabetes Mellitus DataLink (SUPREME-DM)--uses information from roughly 1.1 million diabetics in 10 states, supposedly making it the largest private-sector diabetes registry in the U.S.
The registry is part of the HMO Research Network's Virtual Data Warehouse, which consists of 19 healthcare delivery systems that have standardized data sets from their EHRs. It will prompt the creation of more comprehensive prevention and treatment strategies, according to the study's authors.
An algorithm applied to more than 15 million records pulled from the 11 systems determined the number of members with diabetes.
"Use of registries has enhanced medical care for patients with diabetes in individual healthcare systems for two decades," the authors said. "One major goal of the SUPREME-DM DataLink is to standardize data definitions across participating systems to provide the best possible estimates of diabetes and its complications. The variability among organizations in the proportion of people with diabetes and the source of recognition of incident cases emphasizes the need for this next step."
The authors added that they plan to update the registry as new information becomes available. They said that many similar registries aren't able to produce equivalent data for analysis, like one created via a collaborative effort by the CDC and three managed care organizations that ultimately was not maintained.
Thirty-three diabetes researchers will oversee the SUPREME-DM registry.
To learn more:
- here's the study
- here's the registry's announcement