Ophthalmology academy to launch eyecare database

In an effort to improve the quality of care for patients requiring medical and surgical care for vision loss, the American Academy of Ophthalmology has plans to implement the nation's first comprehensive eye disease patient database.

According to a release, the initiative will enable ophthalmologists across the country to statistically review and analyze their own care and compare it to benchmarks and peer physician performance.

The IRIS (Intelligent Research in Sight) Registry is a centralized data repository and reporting tool that collects data from EHRs and performs statistical analysis of aggregated, de-identified patient data to produce easy-to-interpret, national and practice-level benchmark reports, according to the organization. The reports can validate the quality of care ophthalmologists provide and pinpoint opportunities for improvement. By assessing their quality of care rates and studying best practices, ophthalmologists can develop a strategic plan for improving patient outcomes.

"This is a fantastically powerful tool that will stimulate improved quality of eye care," said David W. Parke II, MD, CEO of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. "None of us went to medical school to be average physicians. We respond to data and seek tools to benchmark our own performance."

The ophthalmology database is expected to provide other significant benefits for eye physicians and surgeons, such as automatic participation in the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). As an approved PQRS EHR submission vendor, the IRIS Registry can directly and automatically extract data for PQRS measures and submit it to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on a practice's behalf, eliminating the need for the traditional method of ophthalmologists manually reporting their data on their Medicare claims throughout the year.

The academy plans for the IRIS Registry to expand its scope to include functions for completing the American Board of Ophthalmology's Maintenance of Certification Practice Improvement Modules, clinical research, post-market surveillance studies of ophthalmic drugs and devices, early detection of safety signals for adverse health events and determining changes in practice patterns.

The academy is partnering in the development of the IRIS Registry with FIGMD, the software and technology firm involved in developing and maintaining registries for both the American College of Cardiology and the American Gastroenterological Association. It is currently piloting the IRIS Registry with pre-selected, early-access users, with plans to launch the registry to all practicing U.S.-based ophthalmologists in early 2014. The academy estimates that the IRIS Registry will be populated with more than 20 million patient records within two years.