Society of Gynecologic Oncology Clinical Outcomes Registry: From small beginnings come great things

Clinical registries within medical societies have demonstrated the capacity to promote quality improvement. Opportunities for well-designed data repositories could yield reliable national standards for informing reimbursement, determining adherence to care guidelines, maintaining board certification, and developing bundled payment models. Looking to the future, we set out to develop a gynecologic cancer registry serving the members of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO). The SGO Clinical Outcomes Registry (COR) initiated a web-based data entry platform as a foray into developing a functional registry, compiling data elements specific to gynecologic oncology. Endometrial and ovarian cancer patients began enrollment in early 2014. Within one year, 19 sites were participating with the addition of cervical cancer patients in January 2015. To date, >6500 patients are currently entered from 29 sites, and the COR is being queried to address topics of quality improvement, disparities, and cancer outcomes. The SGO COR has proven the feasibility of developing a functional gynecologic cancer registry, with high uptake, rapid accrual, and ability to investigate topics of quality and outcome using the COR. •The COR exemplifies a subspecialty database for gynecologic oncologic malignancies; cervical, ovarian and endometrial cancers.•SGO members at COR sites have benefited from using registry for institutional quality review and MOC requirements.•Data from the registry has lasting implications for outcomes research, SGO projects and national quality reporting.