The Norwegian Patient Registry and the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care: Research potential of two nationwide health-care registries

In Norway, the Directorate of Health is responsible for two nationwide registries – the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR) and the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care (NRPHC) – which together cover all governmental-funded health care. The NPR (specialist health care) was established in 2008, while the NRPHC (primary health care) was established in 2017. Data from the NPR are extensively used in a large variety of studies. We expect that data from the NRPHC will increase in importance when the registry covers a longer time period. The NRPHC will be especially important for studying conditions mainly treated in primary care and for investigation of patient trajectories. The main aim of this paper is to give an overview of the history and content of the NPR and its research possibilities. In addition, we introduce the NRPHC as a possible future research tool and the potential for studying patient trajectories when combining data from the two registries.