A 2010 audit of the National Cardiovascular Disease Registry (NCDR) found that data in the CathPCI Registry, ICD Registry and ACTION Registry-GWTG accurately reflected the medical records. The results appeared in an NCDR Quality Brief published Sept. 25 online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

NCDR is a database of clinical data used to develop performance and quality metrics, site-level quality improvement programs and peer-reviewed cardiovascular health outcomes research.  As uses of registry data expand, the need to ensure data integrity increases, the brief’s authors noted.

NCDR's Data Quality Program (DQP) is designed to ensure that the information entered into the registry is complete and accurate based on three main components: A data quality report that scans submitted data for integrity and completeness;  an internal quality assurance program within each of the specific registries that ensures data pulled from the registry are complete and correctly reflect the specified requirements; and an annual audit program focused on identifying inaccurate data entry to ensure data accuracy and reliability.

Auditors looked at 50 fields from each of the registries and audited those fields from records submitted by 25 randomly selected participating sites. They reviewed between 12 and 25 records from each site.

They reported average raw data accuracy in the CathPCI Registry of 93.1 percent; in the ICD Registry, 91.2 percent; and in the ACTION Registry-GWTG, 89.7 percent.

The American College of Cardiology Foundation is in the process of developing a quality assurance rapid learning program, according to the authors. Once fully implemented, the program is expected to standardize elements across registries, develop automated algorithms to identify anomalies within the submitted data, increase audit volume and efficiency by allowing remote audits and increase communication among stakeholders, among other benefits.