IRIS Registry to allow wide-ranging access to accurate ophthalmology data

While the concept of a clinical registry is not new to ophthalmology, the Intelligent Research in Sight Registry will be the specialty’s first truly national database. The registry is designed to allow clinicians and researchers to seamlessly collect data and use them to improve patient care, comply with government quality reporting requirements and, ultimately, conduct clinical and post-market research.

Clinical measurement is an essential tool for improving care, according to William L. Rich III, MD, AAO medical director of health policy and chair of the Registry Measure Development Workgroup.

“It’s a basic premise that in order to improve anything, you have to measure it,” Rich told Ocular Surgery News in the March 10 issue.

Primarily, the registry will help ophthalmologists improve the quality of care, Michael X. Repka, MD, MBA, AAO medical director for governmental affairs, said.

“The IRIS Registry formalizes the whole concept of performance improvement in an office setting,” Repka said. “The ability to describe how you’re doing compared to a peer group has certainly been robust in its ability to change practice in many industries, so I would expect it to do the same thing in ophthalmology.” Get the whole story