creating the
smart registry
data collection
As of the 31st of December 2020, the SMART Registry contains data from 14,686 arthroplasty procedures performed at St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne in 10,844 patients. Data collection has been prospective since 1st of January 2005, with retrospective data collection for procedures performed between 1998 and 2004.
Data collected includes patient demographics, current diagnoses and history of comorbidities, relevant clinical observations, prosthesis-specific and operation-specific information, surgical complications, revisions and reoperations, and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Participant recruitment, data collection and follow-up are ongoing and currently includes up to 20 years follow-up date.
data linkage
The SMART Registry is linked annually with Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Data Linkage Unit. The linked SMART, MBS and PBS data provide an overall understanding of the timing and nature of healthcare utilisation of arthroplasty patients including rehabilitation, rehospitalisation and emergency department presentations, and the use of medications before and after surgery. A probabilistic data linkage method is used to link the data sets, and past linkage rates have exceeded 97%. The linked data are de-identified and housed in the Sax Institute’s Secured Unified Research Environment (SURE) which facilitates the sharing of these data between researchers in our team whilst ensuring the data is highly protected.
The SMART Registry data linkage portfolio is expanding with links scheduled with the Australasian Rehabilitation Outcomes Centre (AROC) and National Death Index (NDI) within the next 12 months. Efforts to link SMART with private health insurance data and other Victorian hospital data are also being investigated.