Academy CEO Shares IRIS Registry Clinical Findings at ASCRS

Academy CEO David W. Parke II, MD, presented clinical findings from IRIS Registry data at the general session on ophthalmic innovation at ASCRS 2017 May 8. In a presentation titled “Big Data as the Driver of Ophthalmic Innovation,” Dr. Parke described how the registry’s data set can improve clinical care and generate new scientific knowledge.

Since its launch in 2014, the registry has already amassed 134 million patient encounters and helped member ophthalmologists save an estimated $90 million in 2014 and 2015 penalties from federal quality reporting programs. Currently 16,520 providers use the registry, either through their integrated electronic health record system or by manually entering data in the web portal.

In his ASCRS presentation, Dr. Parke described how data collected in the IRIS Registry are already providing insight into rare events, such as the endophthalmitis rate after cataract surgery and long-term IOP reduction after cataract surgery.

To participate in the IRIS Registry, all ophthalmologists in a practice must be Academy members in good standing. New practices must sign up by June 1 to use the IRIS Registry for 2017 reporting in the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System. Practices that miss the sign-up deadline or don’t have an EHR system have until Oct. 31 to sign up for the registry’s manual-entry web portal for 2017 reporting.