Health Systems Create Virtual Diabetes Registry

Eleven integrated health-care systems used electronic health records data to compile the largest private-sector diabetes registry in the country, according to a study published June 7 in the Centers for Disease Control’s Preventing Chronic Disease.

The health care systems compiled the registry, a virtual data warehouse, by extracting information from EHRs, according to the study, “Construction of a Multisite DataLink Using Electronic Health Records for the Identification, Surveillance, Prevention, and Management of Diabetes Mellitus: The SUPREME-DM Project.” The registry does not identify patients by name, but information gleaned from their records can be used for research, analysis and to find subjects for clinical trials.

“The DataLink will allow us to compare more prevention and treatment strategies with a larger group of patients, which will ultimately prevent more people from getting the disease and improve care for the 25 million Americans who already have it,” said Greg Nichols, lead author of the study and senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., in a Kaiser Permanente news release.

The 11 health-care systems participating in the diabetes registry are in six Kaiser Permanente regions:  Northern California, Southern California, Northwest [Oregon/Washington], Hawaii, Colorado and Georgia; as well as HealthPartners of Minnesota, Marshfield Clinic of Wisconsin, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, Group Health Cooperative in Washington, and Henry Ford Health System in Michigan). At the time of the registry’s creation, the health plans had about 10 million enrollees.

“Our database contains an ethnically and geographically diverse population of women and men who mirror the general population with diabetes,” said Dr. John Steiner, a co-author and senior director with the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Research in Denver, in the news release. “We can follow these patients over time and expect that what happens with our patients will also happen with patients throughout the country.”

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality made a grant that paid for the research.