Barriers and facilitators for the implementation of health condition and outcome registry systems: a systematic literature review

Global data monitoring systems and early identification for kidney diseases

BACKGROUND

Data monitoring and surveillance systems are the cornerstone for governance and regulation, planning, and policy development for chronic disease care. Our study aims to evaluate health systems capacity for data monitoring and surveillance for kidney care.

METHODS

We leveraged data from the third iteration of the International Society of Nephrology Global Kidney Health Atlas (ISN-GKHA), an international survey of stakeholders (clinicians, policymakers and patient advocates) from 167 countries conducted between July and September 2022. ISN-GKHA contains data on availability and types of kidney registries, the spectrum of their coverage, as well as data on national policies for kidney disease identification.

RESULTS

Overall, 167 countries responded to the survey, representing 97.4% of the global population. Information systems in forms of registries for dialysis care were available in 63% (n = 102/162) of countries, followed by kidney transplant registries (58%; n = 94/162), and registries for non-dialysis chronic kidney disease (19%; n = 31/162) and acute kidney injury (9%; n = 14/162). Participation in dialysis registries was mandatory in 57% (n = 58) of countries; however, in more than half of countries in Africa (58%; n = 7), Eastern and Central Europe (67%; n = 10), and South Asia (100%; n = 2), participation was voluntary. The least-reported performance measures in dialysis registries were hospitalization (36%; n = 37) and quality of life (24%; n = 24).

CONCLUSIONS

The variability of health information systems and early identification systems for kidney disease across countries and world regions warrants a global framework for prioritizing the development of these systems.

Implementation of thyroid eye disease registry in Iran: rationale and research protocol

BACKGROUND

To describe the implementation of a registry system for patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) in Iran to obtain more information about its nature, prevalence, and annual incidence, as well as extend insight into the etiology, pathogenesis, and eventually make an accurate prognosis of different medical or surgical treatment methods.

METHODS

After receiving approval from the Disease Registry Committee of Iran University of Medical Sciences (IUMS) in 2019 and the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) in 2020, the protocol was introduced in three consecutive phases at regional, provincial and national levels. The establishment of a registry committee in Rassoul Akram Hospital, one of the medical centers affiliated to IUMS, was the first step to organizing the registry project's main core. The steering committee included six subgroups of required subject fields. The members are experts in developing a guideline, providing a new dataset, drawing an outline for the next steps, and structuring user-friendly software through several panel discussion meetings. The data is collected from clinical and para-clinical/imaging findings, laboratory evaluations, and their selected treatment strategy, retrospectively and prospectively.

RESULTS

The purpose is to broaden our knowledge about the profile of TED; accordingly, data related to patients' demographics, thyroid gland disease (status, duration, treatments, and function tests), general medical and ocular history, along with visual/ocular exams resulting TED status are collected and recorded in a 2- language software. The web-based software system is accessible at https://orc.iums.ac.ir . To maintain data security, prioritized user access was defined for different members. Furthermore, diverse methods, such as employing trained staff and utilizing software validation rules, were implemented to control data quality in every step of data collection, entry, and registration. Medical records of retrospective subjects were also evaluated and entered after accuracy verification.

CONCLUSION

Iran's TED registry provides practitioners with comprehensive data on natural history and phenotype variations in clinical features and outcomes. It facilitates patient recruitment and, consequently, earlier diagnosis on a large scale which helps improve treatment and quality of life for patients.

Barriers and facilitators of using health information technologies by women: a scoping review

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Health information technologies play a vital role in addressing diverse health needs among women, offering a wide array of services tailored to their specific requirements. Despite the potential benefits, the widespread utilization of these technologies by women faces numerous barriers and challenges. These barriers can cause women to either reduce their usage of health technologies or refrain from using them altogether. Therefore, this review was done with the aim of identifying and classifying barriers and facilitators.

METHODS

Some databases, including PubMed, Web of Sciences, and Scopus were searched using related keywords. Then, according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the articles were evaluated and selected. Finally, the barriers and facilitators were identified and classified.

RESULTS

Out of 14,399 articles, finally 35 articles were included in the review. In general, 375 barriers (232 items) and facilitators (143 items) were extracted from the studies. After merging similar items, 121 barriers (51 items) and facilitators (70 items) identified were organized into five main themes (management, technological, legal and regulatory, personal, and data and information management). The most important barriers were "privacy, confidentiality, and security concerns" (n = 24), "deficiencies and limitations of infrastructure, software, hardware, and network" (n = 19), "sociocultural challenges" (n = 15), and "poor economic status" (n = 15). Moreover, the most important facilitators were "increasing awareness, skills and continuous education of women" (n = 17, in personal theme), "providing training services" (n = 14, in management theme), "simple, usable, and user-friendly design of technologies" (n = 14, in technological theme), and "providing financial or non-financial incentives (motivation) for women" (n = 14, in personal theme).

CONCLUSION

This review showed that in order to use technologies, women face many barriers, either specific to women (such as gender inequality) or general (such as lack of technical skills). To overcome these barriers, policymakers, managers of organizations and medical centers, and designers of health systems can consider the facilitators identified in this review.

Online Health Communities: an alternative feasible data registry tool for developing countries

Given the many challenges facing healthcare access in many developing countries and the added limitations observed in emergencies like COVID-19 pandemic, the authors here discuss an alternative and feasible approach to overcome all these limitations.

Global Neurotrauma Surveillance: Are National Databases Overrated? Comment on "Neurotrauma Surveillance in National Registries of Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Scoping Review and Comparative Analysis of Data Dictionaries"

Injuries are a public health crisis. Neurotrauma, a specific type of injury, is a leading cause of death and disability globally, with the largest burden in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, there is a lack of quality neurotrauma-specific data in LMICs, especially at the national level. Without standard criteria for what constitutes a national registry, and significant challenges frequently preventing this level of data collection, we argue that single-institution or regional databases can provide significant value for context-appropriate solutions. Although granular data for larger populations and a universal minimum dataset to enable comparison remain the gold standard, we must put progress over perfection. It is critical to engage local experts to explore available data and build effective information systems to inform solutions and serve as the foundation for quality and process improvement initiatives. Other items to consider include adequate resource allocation and leveraging of technology as we work to address the persistent but largely preventable injury pandemic.

Development and pilot implementation of Iranian Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Registry

Background

Patients with Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) face late diagnosis and lack of appropriate treatment because of a lack of knowledge and experience in this field. A prerequisite for such knowledge is the development of research infrastructures such as a registry system. Therefore, this study aimed to develop and describe the HUS registry in accordance with the Iranian health system and implement its software system.

Methods

We first interviewed 10 pediatric nephrologists and after analyzing the interviews, we identified the features and requirements and the data related to HUS. Then, during two rounds of the Delphi technique (the first round with 23 participants and the second round with 18 participants), the model of this registry was finalized based on the agreement of at least 75% of specialists. At the next step, based on the agreed requirements, IRI.HUS.Reg (Iranian Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome Registry) software was developed and implemented in a pediatric hospital.

Results

We classified 369 meaning units of interviews in 41 codes and 7 final themes including purposes of the registry (10 codes), inclusion criteria (7 codes), data collection method (4 codes), data quality control (6 codes), data sources (4 codes), data analysis (3 codes) and software features (7 codes). These 7 feature groups (67 subgroups) and 12 data classes (138 data elements) include demographic data, referrals, examinations, clinical signs, causes, laboratory tests, medical histories, paraclinical measures, treatments, outcomes, patient’s status at discharge, and follow-up data were reviewed by the Delphi panelists, and finally, 64 features and 131 data elements were accepted by at least 78% agreement. Then, we developed and implemented a registry software system in a hospital.

Conclusion

We implemented IRI.HUS.Reg based on related features, 12 data classes agreed by specialists, literature review, and comparison with other existing registries. Therefore, the data collected in this registry can be compared with other data from existing registries in other countries.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13023-022-02376-9.

Barriers and facilitators for disease registry systems: a mixed-method study

Background

A Disease Registry System (DRS) is a system that collects standard data on a specific disease with an organized method for specific purposes in a population. Barriers and facilitators for DRSs are different according to the health system of each country, and identifying these factors is necessary to improve DRSs, so the purpose of this study was to identify and prioritize these factors.

Methods

First, by conducting 13 interviews with DRS specialists, barriers and facilitators for DRSs were identified and then, a questionnaire was developed to prioritize these factors. Then, 15 experts answered the questionnaires. We prioritized these factors based on the mean of scores in four levels including first priority (3.76–5), second priority (2.51–3.75), third priority (1.26–2.50), and the fourth priority (1–1.25).

Results

At first, 139 unique codes (63 barriers and 76 facilitators) were extracted from the interviews. We classified barriers into 9 themes, including management problems (24 codes), data collection-related problems (8 codes), poor cooperation/coordination (7 codes), technological problems and lack of motivation/interest (6 codes for each), threats to ethics/data security/confidentiality (5 codes), data quality-related problems (3 codes), limited patients’ participation and lack of or non-use of standards (2 codes for each). We also classified facilitators into 9 themes including management facilitators (36 codes), improving data quality (8 codes), proper data collection and observing ethics/data security/confidentiality (7 codes for each), appropriate technology (6 codes), increasing patients’ participation, increasing motivation/interest, improving cooperation/coordination, and the use of standards (3 codes for each). The first three ranked barriers based on mean scores included poor stakeholder cooperation/coordination (4.30), lack of standards (4.26), and data quality-related problems (4.06). The first three ranked facilitators included improving data quality (4.54), increasing motivation/interest (4.48), and observing ethics/data security/confidentiality (4.36).

Conclusion

Stakeholders’ coordination, proper data management, standardization and observing ethics, security/confidentiality are the most important areas for planning and investment that managers must consider for the continuation and success of DRSs.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12911-022-01840-7.