Diabetes Collaborative Registry aims at improving quality of diabetes across specialty care continuum

The American College of Cardiology, in partnership with the American Diabetes Association, the American College of Physicians and Joslin Diabetes Center, is launching the Diabetes Collaborative Registry, the first clinical registry aimed at tracking and improving the quality of diabetes and cardiometabolic care across the primary and specialty care continuum.

Patients with diabetes often receive treatments across medical specialties for a multitude of related conditions. The Diabetes Collaborative Registry will allow for a longitudinal study of diabetes presentation, progression, management and outcomes, even as patients receive treatment from multidisciplinary care teams. The Diabetes Collaborative Registry will incorporate the growing number of patients with diabetes in the ACC's PINNACLE Registry, which is the nation's largest ambulatory cardiovascular registry.

"Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among people with diabetes, and there is a clear need for cross-specialty management of diabetes patients," said American College of Cardiology President Patrick T. O'Gara, MD, FACC. "By consolidating patient data, this registry will allow primary care physicians and specialists who treat patients with diabetes to compare data and access real-time metrics on patients in all stages of the disease."

Made possible through support from founding sponsor AstraZeneca-a long-time proponent of efforts to improve diabetes care and reduce cardiovascular disease-the Diabetes Collaborative Registry will leverage the PINNACLE Registry's already well-established technology platform to retrieve data from electronic medical records collected by participating primary care physicians, endocrinologists, cardiologists and other diabetes care providers.

"Support of this initiative with the American College of Cardiology in collaboration with key diabetes advocacy organizations is the latest example of AstraZeneca's commitment to support the generation of new evidence that will enable health care professionals to improve diabetes care," said Briggs Morrison, MD, Executive Vice President, Global Medicines Development & Chief Medical Officer, AstraZeneca. "It is our hope that this innovative Diabetes Collaborative Registry reveals important new insights that will drive a better understanding of the disease process, which may ultimately lead to better treatments and improved patient health outcomes."

The data measures captured in the Diabetes Collaborative Registry will expand beyond those currently captured in PINNACLE to include additional measures relevant to a wider group of providers who are involved in the coordinated care and treatment of diabetes.

"Joslin is pleased to be a founding partner of the first clinical diabetes registry. The acquisition, analysis and use of data are game changers with regard to population health. As an early adopter of the electronic health record, this data informs everything that Joslin does and aspires to do in furtherance of its mission to prevent, treat and cure diabetes," said John L. Brooks III, President and CEO of the Joslin Diabetes Center. "Participating in a cross-specialty registry is a natural extension of Joslin's 116 year commitment to cutting-edge diabetes research; its equally longstanding tradition of delivering innovative team-based diabetes care led by endocrinologists who are specialists in diabetes; and its commitment to extend the reach of our clinical care model beyond our clinic in Boston through our network of specialty-care affiliates."

Participation in the registry is expected to yield long-term benefits for practices, providers and patients. Physicians will be able to track adherence to performance measures at the provider and practice level, compare performance to national benchmarks, target quality improvement areas and ultimately transform the quality of care provided to patients.

"Internal medicine physician specialists are on the front lines of diabetes care," said American College of Physicians President David A. Fleming, MD, FACP. "The Diabetes Collaborative Registry will enable effective and patient-centered communication among doctors across specialties, an especially important component for high value care of patients with diseases like diabetes that often have coexisting illnesses."

Researchers will gain access to a repository of diabetes care data from various providers in outpatient settings; patients will benefit from their physicians' increased access to a central repository of diabetes data based on the latest science and research that can be used to tailor their care.

"Diabetes is not one disease but a complex set of diseases and too often leads to serious and potentially life-threatening complications, such as cardiovascular and kidney disease, as well as nerve damage, amputation, blindness and a multitude of other health problems," said American Diabetes Association Chief Scientific and Medical Officer Robert E. Ratner, MD, FACP, FACE. "We hope that a cross-specialty, clinical registry will ultimately allow us to improve the quality of care-and therefore quality of life-for all people living with diabetes by giving researchers a clearer picture of what's happening to patients at various stages of their disease. Improved data collection should help us improve patient outcomes."