Lessons from the on-site quality audit of data transmitted to the French cystic fibrosis registry

Background The French Cystic Fibrosis Registry takes a census of the population of patients and records their annual data transmitted by Cystic Fibrosis Centers (CFCs). Quality of patient data has been a focus in the past years, with the implementation of automated controls before data integration. The objective was to assess, at the 14 CFCs trained in the quality improvement named Hospital Program to Improve Outcomes and Expertise in Cystic Fibrosis (PHARE-M), the quality of the 2012 and 2013 data transmitted to the French Registry with respect to the rules established to obtain forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1%) and anthropometric data. Methods The clinical researcher selected 20 patients at each CFC from age ranges corresponding to different visit frequencies and measurement procedures in order to reach saturation of error causes. The control consisted in comparing source data, pulmonary function tests (PFTs), patient records, and data in the Registry. Results The audit focused on 242 patients, 2455 consultations and 1855 PFTs. Less than 5% of data concerning weight, height, or FEV1 (L) in the patient records files had discrepancies with source data. Discrepancies on patient height between patient records and PFT files were found in 11% of cases. For one hundred and ten patients (45%), anomalies were found between the patient record and the Registry for the FEV1% and the associated anthropometric measurements mainly related to the interpretation of the selection rule of the venue corresponding to the “best spirometry in the year” and the reference standard used (local standards versus Knudson reference equations). For the 33 children in the age range of 6–17 years old (27% out of 120 children records controlled), the FEV1% value in the Registry presented an average deviation of +4.25% (min. = −9.3%; max. = +16.9%; median = 4%) with the value from the Patient record. Conclusions This first on-site quality audit of the data transmitted to the Registry pointed out variability in the measurement process at the CFCs. The rule for selecting the data for the Registry was applied differently at some CFCs, and various local References for the FEV1% calculation were used. Avenues for improvement have been identified.