A registry of healthcare information on patients with mild to moderate chronic kidney disease could help physicians improve care for patients, according to a new study in Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

The results suggest that officials could use such a registry – based on electronic health records – to develop a national surveillance system to identify and track various aspects of chronic kidney disease.

The incidence and healthcare costs of chronic kidney disease are growing. A national reporting system that collects healthcare details on dialysis patients and kidney transplant patients across the United States has helped clinicians and researchers identify ways to improve quality of care for patients with advanced kidney disease. But no such nationwide database exists for patients with mild to moderate stages of chronic kidney disease who do not yet require dialysis.

Sankar Navaneethan, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and his colleagues recently developed a kidney disease registry at the clinic based on electronic health records that could serve as a model for the rest of the country.

The registry at the Cleveland Clinic houses information on the demographics, medical conditions, laboratory details, medications and other characteristics of 57,276 patients. The investigators verified the information collected in the registry and noted that it is reliable for helping physicians follow the course of disease in patients as they progress from early to later stages of chronic kidney disease.

The registry could also help clinicians evaluate the effectiveness of various treatment strategies in these patients.

"This registry, which will interface with other national registries, is uniquely designed to track the management of  chronic kidney disease over the entire care spectrum, ranging from the primary care environment to therapy with dialysis or transplantation," said Navaneethan.