Submitting data to the AAOS Registry Program is a simple process. After participating sites collect the necessary data elements, they can submit their data through the AAOS RegistryInsights® data upload process, via a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP), or via a hypertext transfer protocol secure (HTTPS).
Data Submission Best Practices
- Submit data monthly
- Consult with your site’s IT team to set up automated reports
- Monitor data submission uploads and address errors with RegistryInsights
Decreasing Data Entry Burden
- AAOS has partnered with Authorized Vendors to facilitate the data submission process
- Reuse data that already exists in medical record, practice management, and patient reported outcome (PRO) systems
- Fracture & Trauma Registry (FTR) Powered by PatientIQ is a new turnkey service offering that reduces the burden of data entry to the FTR. Learn more here.
If you are experiencing issues related to submitting data to the Registry Program, please contact AAOS Registry Support at RegistrySupport@aaos.org or visit our Data Submission FAQs page.
The Data Specifications Annual Sunset Cycle
Since we’re always evolving the AAOS Registry Program to ensure there’s value, we need to update our data elements on a regular basis. Routinely updating the Data Specifications is necessary to improve the quality of data collected, reduce the data entry burden, and grow with the orthopaedic profession. To simplify this process, we implemented a Data Specifications Annual Sunset Cycle. View the diagram below for key dates to keep in mind.
Interested in viewing the Data Specifications or Data Dictionary for an AAOS Registry? These documents are proprietary and can be accessed in the Tools & Resources tab on AAOS RegistryInsights. For more information, please contact AAOS Registry Program staff at RegistryInfo@aaos.org.
Accessing Submitted Data
There are three ways to access AAOS Registry Program data:
- AAOS RegistryInsights – A platform that allows your site to view the data for all your AAOS orthopaedic registries in one place
- Custom Reports – Our Analytics team can create custom aggregated reports for every metric across all data submitted. Custom reports can help participating sites understand and package their data into an actionable format. The reports can include site-specific metrics and shape continuous improvements to the standard dashboards provided.
- AAOS Registry Analytics Institute® – A resource for the scientific community to further understand and improve orthopaedic and musculoskeletal care by making data available to examine outcomes
AAOS Registry Program Data Security Measures to Ensure Patient Privacy
We are HIPAA and HITECH Compliant
We’re a Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act compliant organization. This has led to us documenting and implementing policy, as well as training employees according to the regulations. Some of the data we collect will qualify as protected health information (PHI) under HIPAA Privacy and Security rules. The AAOS Registry Program takes data security seriously and employs several steps to safeguard patient privacy.
We utilize industry-wide best security practices when it comes to the integrity and safeguarding of our sensitive information. You can be confident in knowing that we have employed internal risk management practices to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your data. We’ve activated strong authentication measures and strong encryption algorithms that meet industry standard criteria. In addition, we’ve implemented administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of the confidential patient information.
Our Annual Audit Confirms Data Integrity
You can be confident about your site’s data integrity. To ensure that the Registry Program's data and reporting are as accurate as possible, every year we undergo a third-party audit of a sample of our participating sites. Quality Insights is a non-profit organization that works with numerous medical specialty organizations and the federal government on a variety of quality initiatives. They have audited our data since 2013, and their latest finding from our 2018 data audit has the overall agreement rate for the medical record review at 95.4%. The overall completeness assessment rate was 93%.