[The STEPWISE database--what can we learn from a Swedish quality registry for eating disorders?]

National quality registries aim at improving health care. Sweden has experience in this area for over 30 years, and to date there are 73 official national registries in use within certain specialties. To our knowledge, Sweden is the only country using a web-based national quality registry (RIKSÄT) that systematically documents eating disorder treatment and outcome. RIKSÄT is part of a progressively growing web-based database (STEPWISE), which can help to bridge the gap between clinical work, quality registry and research. In this article, we present methods and contents of the STEPWISE system and critically discuss its potential and challenges. We establish a relation to registries within the German health care system and the preparatory work for a German web-based registry for eating disorders.