The Benefits of National and Regional Arthroplasty Registries

Since the first arthroplasty registries were established in the 1970s, they have become powerful tools in improving the efficiency of health care delivery and patient outcomes. As demonstrated over the past decades, registries can offer benefits not only to patients and surgeons but also to a variety of other stakeholders, such as hospitals, payers, and implant manufacturers. Registry data may be leveraged to address a variety of pressing concerns in the field of arthroplasty. These examples include the role of registries in (1) informing the financial aspects of an increasingly value-based payment system, (2) identifying best clinical practices, (3) improving the outcomes of individual health care providers, and (4) selecting new technologies through outlier detection and benchmarking. As registries continue to mature by improving data coverage and quality, they will play a central role in shaping the future of arthroplasty as well as orthopaedics in general.