Pain Registries in Australasia
Dr. Susie Lord

Clinical quality registries (CQRs) collect and analyse clinical performance data, and provide patients, clinicians and service planners with regular feedback on practice and outcomes.

By identifying variations in outcomes, registries allow for development of benchmarks and assessment of comparative performance at the clinic, regional, national, and international levels. Examining and learning from the practices of high-performing services, through a continuous quality improvement process, may lead to earlier identification and dissemination of best practices.

In 2012, the Australian and New Zealand pain management sector began a clinical quality registry named ePPOC (the electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration) which has adults’ and children’s service arms—ePPOC1 and PaedePPOC2.

In parallel, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care developed a national framework to promote best practice design, development, operation and security of CQRs.3 Recently, the Australian government has moved toward CQR policy with its Draft National Clinical Quality Registry Strategy (2019-2029).4

This draft strategy articulates four government objectives:
1) partnering with patients in CQR development
2) assuring CQR quality by developing CQR standards and an accreditation scheme
3) maximising data utilisation through improved access and linkage
4) developing a sustainable funding model for national, prioritised CQRs

Chronic pain and ePPOC were absent from the draft CQR priority list, despite chronic pain being a driver for disease burden and cost in many of the prioritised chronic conditions. Continued advocacy may see this situation improve in the interests of the many people with chronic pain across both countries.

Upcoming Meetings: 

• Pain Registries SIG Business Meeting
  5 August 2020 | Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
  More Info
  

Follow the steps below to access the Pain Registries SIG online discussion forum, Groupsite: 

• Login into your IASP account
• Click on "My Account"
• Scroll down to "My Group Memberships"
• Click on your listed SIG - "Pain Registries"

Recent research articles on pain registries recently published

• Accuracy of Self-reported Prescribed Analgesic Medication Use Linkage Between the Quebec Pain Registry and the Quebec Administrative Prescription Claims Database | Lacasse A, Ware M, Bourgault P, et al. | 2016 Feb|
  
  
• As if one pain problem was not enough: prevalence and patterns of coexisting chronic pain conditions and their impace on treatment outcomes | Page M, Fortier M, Ware M, Choiniere M | 2017 Dec|
  
  
• Development and Implementation of a Registry of Patients Attending Multidisciplinary Pain Treatment Clinics: The Quebec Pain Registry | M.Choinière,M.A.Ware,M.G.Pagé, et al. | 2017 Feb|
  
  
• Effectiveness of long-term opioid therapy among chronic non-cancer pain patients attending multidisciplinary pain treatment clinics: A Quebec Pain Registry Study | Saidi H, Page M, Boulanger A, et al. | 2018 Apr|
  
  
• Establishment of the Australasian electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration | Tardif H, Arnold C, Hayes C, Eagar K | 2016 Aug|
  
  
• Expectations predict chronic pain treatment outcome | Cormiera S, Lavigneb G, Choiniere M, et al. | 2016 Feb|
  
  
• Implementation of Patient‐Reported Outcomes (PROMs) from specialist pain clinics in England and Wales: Experience from a nationwide study | Price CM, C. de C. Williams A, Smith BH, Bottle A | 2019 Apr|
• Is the Quebec provincial administrative database a valid source for research on chronic non-cancer pain? | Lacasse A, Ware M, Dorais M, et al. | 2015 Jun|
  
  
• Normative data for common pain measures in chronic pain clinic populations: closing a gap for clinicians and researchers | Nicholas MK, Costa DS, Blanchard M, Tardif H, Asghari A, Blyth FM | 2019 May|
• Pain registries and similar data collections: A systematic review | Freytag A, Scriba B, Kaiser U, Meissner W | 2016 Dec|
  
  
• Pain-related functional interference in patients with chronic neuropathic postsurgical pain: an analysis of registry data | Stamer UM, Ehrler M, Lehmann T, Meissner W, Fletcher D | 2019 Mar|
  
  
• Predicting Acute Pain After Surgery: A Multivariate Analysis. Annals of surgery | Baca Q, Marti F, Poblete B, Gaudilliere B, Aghaeepour N, Angst MS | 2019 Jun|
  
  
• Predicting treatment outcomes of pain patients attending tertiary multidisciplinary pain treatment centers: A pain trajectory approach | Page M, Escobar M, Ware M, et al. | 2017 Aug|
  
  
• Pregabalin for chronic pain: does one medication fit all? | Giladi H, Choinière M, Fitzcharles M, et al. | 2015 May|
  
  
• Risk of Opioid Abuse and Biopsychosocial Characteristics Associated With This Risk Among Chronic Pain Patients Attending a Multidisciplinary Pain Treatment Facility | Page M, Saidi H, Ware M, et al. | 2016 Oct|
  
  
• The National Pain Audit for specialist pain services in England and Wales 2010–2014 | Price C, de C Williams AC, Smith BH, Bottle A | 2018 Dec|
  
  
• The Paediatric electronic Persistent Pain Outcomes Collaboration (PaedePPOC): establishment of a binational system for benchmarking children's persistent pain services | Lord SM, Tardif HP, Kepreotes EA, Blanchard M, Eagar K | 2019 Mar|
  

Other articles of relevance

• Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care. Framework for Australian clinical quality registries | 2014 Mar
  
  
• Australian Government, Department of Health. Draft National Clinical Quality Registry Strategy: Maximising the Potential of Australian Clinical Quality Registries (2019-2029) | 2019 May
  
  
• Impact of clinical registries on quality of patient care and clinical outcomes: A systematic review. PloS one | 2017 Sep