Cardiovascular diseases monitoring: lessons from population-based registries to address future opportunities and challenges in Europe

BACKGROUND: Population-based registries implement the comprehensive collection of all disease events that occur in a well-characterized population within a certain time period and represent the preferred tools for disease monitoring at a population level. Main characteristics of a Population-based registry are to provide answers to defined research questions, also related to clinical and health policy purposes, assuring completeness of event identification, and implementing a process of case adjudication (validation) according to standardised diagnostic criteria. METHODS: The application of a standard methodology results in the availability of reliable and comparable data and facilitates the transferability of health information for research and evidence-based health policies. Although registries are extremely useful, they require considerable resources to be implemented and maintained, high cost and efforts, to produce stable and reliable indicators. RESULTS: Thanks to available health information and information technology, current administrative databases on hospital admissions and discharges, medication use, in-patient care utilization, surgical operations, drug dispensations, ticket exemption and invasive procedures are increasingly available. They represent basic sources of information for implementing Population-based registries. Main strengths and limitations of Population-based registries are described taking into consideration the example of cardiovascular diseases, as well as future challenges and opportunities for implementing Population-based registries at European level. CONCLUSIONS: The integration of population-based registries and current administrative health databases may help to complete the picture of the disease rebuilding the evolution of the disease as a continuum from the onset to the possible consequent complications.