AHRQ publishes guide to patient outcome registries;

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has published the "Registries for Evaluating Patient Outcomes: A User's Guide," which lays out the essential components of designing, conducting and assessing registries and provides best practices for enhancing the studies. The Guide was developed by Outcome Sciences under AHRQ's "Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness Network," a part of the agency's Effective Healthcare Program.

The user guide focuses on registries evaluating the natural history of a disease, determining clinical effectiveness or cost effectiveness, measuring or monitoring safety and harm, and measuring quality. Since registries vary widely in methodology, scope and objectives, the Guide does not apply blanket recommendations to all patient outcome registries.

Click here to link to an electronic version of the:  User Guide.

Links:
Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality Press Release
Effective HealthCare Website
Summary report (16 pages)