The North American Spine Society chose Ontario, Canada-based Ortech Data Centre to design and manage the NASS registry.
The NASS registry will collect de-identified data to enhance the understanding of spine care treatment, patient outcomes and the natural history of spine disorders. The initiative will begin as a pilot which will test the data collection process, platform and measures and determine the administrative and cost burden to participants before expanding the registry to NASS membership.
"The driving force behind the NASS registry is the ability for the first time to document the comparative effectiveness of various strategies and treatments for patients with lumbar spinal disorders," said Zoher Ghogawala, MD, NASS clinical research development chair, in a news release. "The reason the effort is so important is that the costs associated with spinal care in the United States are now estimated to exceed $100 billion a year. To put this into perspective, studies have shown that the cost of all spine care in the United States is equivalent to the cost of all cancer care in the United States. For people who don't think about numbers, spine is a big-ticket item."
Daniel K. Resnick, MD, NASS research council director will co-lead the development of the registry with Dr. Ghogawala.
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