Harness RISE registry’s capabilities to improve practice, research


The Rheumatology Informatics System for Effectiveness (RISE) Registry was designed to provide superior quality reporting and quality-improvement capabilities for rheumatologists. The registry is a rich, best-in-class resource developed by the American College of Rheumatology, and is the first and largest national EHR-enabled rheumatology registry in the United States. 


Anyone interested in learning more about RISE and how it can enhance their practice or research should attend the Clinical Practice session Using the RISE Registry to Improve Practice & Research, which will take place Wednesday from 9:00 – 10:00 am in Room B308, Building B in the Georgia World Congress Center.


The session will open with Janell Martin, CAE, ACR Director of Registry Operations, giving an overview of some of the best practices for Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) reporting using RISE. 


Martin will cover information related to using RISE to meet the MIPS 2019 requirements and best practices for submission, discuss new workflows to address data integrity, and touch on new projects to enhance the registry experience for users. 


Beyond Reporting


Jinoos Yazdany, MD, MPH
Jinoos Yazdany, MD, MPH

Following Martin, Jinoos Yazdany, MD, MPH, from the University of California, San Francisco, will discuss some of the capabilities of the RISE Registry beyond quality reporting. 


Dr. Yazdany will discuss several innovative projects that have been enabled by the health IT infrastructure that RISE has created. For example, RISE users can now participate in a learning collaborative project that includes a group of practices across the country interested in working together to improve outcomes in their practice. 


The RISE Registry is also performing a pilot project that will hopefully pave the way for practices to participate in consented research studies. 


“Up until now, RISE has been passively collecting data,” Dr. Yazdany said. “Now, for the first time, we are embarking on a project that consents patients and allows them to participate in a national clinical research study. By harnessing the power of the RISE network, we hope to help investigators efficiently recruit patients for research that will advance rheumatology and improve outcomes.”


The consented study will enroll African American patients with scleroderma and aims to uncover the genetics and biology of the disease. 


Dr. Yazdany will also detail new opportunities to take advantage of RISE partner organizations. One example is an organization that will provide health coaching for patients with rheumatoid arthritis. RISE users will be able to access these health coaches at no cost. 


RISE Research


Katherine Liao, MD, MPH
Katherine Liao, MD, MPH

The final presentation will be a joint presentation from Katherine Liao, MD, MPH, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Gabriela Schmajuk, MD, University of California, San Francisco, who will discuss some of the ways that the RISE Registry can be used for research. 


“RISE was developed for quality reporting, but repurposing the data for research was a natural way to enhance the use of these data,” said Dr. Liao. “Electronic health records are now being widely used for research on a large scale everywhere, and RISE would represent data focused on patients with rheumatic diseases.”


One recent example of harnessing data from RISE was a study presented at the 2018 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting on patterns of biosimilar use in rheumatology. Using data from 245 rheumatology practices in the United States, Dr. Liao and colleagues were able to establish a small uptake in the use of biosimilar drugs within 1.5 years of approval. 


“The RISE Registry is enriched for patients with rheumatic diseases and provides a snapshot of rheumatology patients across the country,” Dr. Liao said. 


During this portion of the session, Drs. Liao and Schmajuk will also discuss how investigators can work with the RISE data, understand the capabilities of RISE for research, and break down some of the numbers in the registry in terms of rheumatologic conditions. They will also give examples of some of the other studies being conducted using data from the registry.