Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs Psychological Health & Traumatic Brain Injury Registry
About the DoD/VA PH & TBI Registry
What are the plans for the registry?
The Department of Defense and Department of Veteran Affairs Psychological Health & Traumatic Brain Injury (DoD/VA PH & TBI) Registry will contain psychological health and traumatic brain injury data collected from existing authoritative source systems within the departments.
The Registry Stakeholders’ Work Group kicked off Aug. 3, 2015, with representatives from Health Affairs, Defense Health Agency, Department of Veterans Affairs, and the military services. Rear Adm. Bruce Doll, Defense Health Agency Research, Development and Acquisition director, was the keynote speaker. Regular sub-work group meetings started in September 2015. Both groups are reviewing and updating operational registry documents.
How will it help service members?
The goal of the planned registry is to provide standardized and centralized data to help inform long-term studies of service members and veterans with service-related injuries. Improved access to this integrated data will help providers better understand psychological health and TBI conditions. This information will also help improve clinical practice guidelines and policy recommendations to enhance the quality of patient care.
Data collected and cataloged may include:
- Service member, veteran and provider demographic information
- Clinical data regarding injury (e.g., type, cause)
- Diagnosis
- Medical and surgical interventions
- Other treatments including education and rehabilitation
- Outcomes related to significant injuries incurred by active-duty service members
Why do we need it?
Currently, there isn’t a central health system or database that the Defense Department and VA can use to catalog or access psychological health and TBI data for military and veteran populations.
The military health system needs longitudinal analyses to better understand and treat patients with psychological health and TBI concerns. A central health registry will allow the departments to catalog the causes, conditions, treatments and outcomes of service-related injuries. This integrated data will help inform providers, leaders and researchers, and ultimately promote a culture of effectiveness to improve care and outcomes for service members and veterans.
Who manages the registry?
DCoE, Office of Integrated Services (OIS).
FAQs
What is a registry?
According to the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality user guide, the term “registry” refers to an organized data system that uses observational study methods to collect uniform demographic, clinical, epidemiological, environmental and other data to evaluate specified outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure, and that serves one or more predetermined scientific, clinical, or policy purposes.
In this context, a registry is more than a list of names of service members and veterans with an identified medical condition. A patient registry identifies a class of individuals by condition, and collects and stores data – it serves as both registry and repository functions.
A patient registry is a powerful tool that can help:
- Evaluate clinical status
- Make clinical decisions
- Understand variations in treatment and outcomes
- Examine factors that influence prognosis and quality of life
- Describe care patterns
- Understand disease patterns and mechanisms of injury
- Improve evaluation and treatment methods
- Track clinical outcomes
Who uses the registry?
Defense Department and VA clinicians, rehabilitation staff, care managers and other users as authorized by DCoE pursuant to role-based access and authorization policies (as authorized through the Center of Excellence Health Registry Governance Board).
What is longitudinal analysis?
Longitudinal analysis is the study of short series of observations obtained from many respondents over time. The analysis involves some comparison of data between or among periods. Experts use longitudinal analysis for panel surveys, experiments, and quasi-experiments in health and biomedicine, and the evaluation of prevention and treatment programs.
What is the expected registry timeline?
The start of registry design and development is scheduled for November 2016. The registry production is scheduled to start May 2017.
Download a PDF version of the timeline