Leveraging the Full Potential of Clinical Registries

The promise of clinical registries lies in their ability to guide clinical practice with valid, specific, and high-quality information. While registries vary in their design and purpose, most are structured systems that compile organized clinical data for a given disease or groups of diseases. Participating institutions send information on patients to central repositories. By systematically collecting data on key variables, it is possible to assess how differences in disease features, patient characteristics, and treatment all impact outcomes.