Olga Martinez and Laia Domingo. Evaluation Area, AQuAS
The Catalonian Register of Arthroplasties (RACat) was set in motion in 2005 as an initiative of the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut), the Catalan Society of Orthopaedic and Traumatology Surgery (SCCOT) and AQuAS (at the time, the Agency for Information, Evaluation and Quality in Health).
Thus, a population register designed to assess the hip and knee arthroplasty effectiveness and safety, was born offering insights into the hospitalizations variability, the procedures and models used for arthroplasty, the survival of the implanted prosthesis and implants traceability and creating indicators for assessing the quality of health care (performance and benchmarking).
Different international previous experiences pointed to the fact that the existence of arthroplasty registers has contributed to reducing variability and improving the effectiveness, safety and quality of arthroplasty1. This fact, coupled with the growing need to respond to several research and clinical management questions highlighted the need to set the RACat in motion. Continue reading