American Society for Clinical Pathology

Medical Specialty Societies

ASCP’s National Pathology Quality Registry helps laboratories assess and optimize their quality and performance.

“We view the National Pathology Quality Registry as something larger than just a registry. It’s a clinical quality improvement tool that we are really proud of. We consider the ArborMetrix team to be a part of our ASCP team. I can’t underscore enough how responsive, intelligent, and innovative the ArborMetrix team is. They not only do the things we ask of them but always think a few steps ahead on how we can advance our quality improvement efforts. We are really excited about what the future holds.”

Alexandra Brown, M.D., F.A.S.C.P.

Medical Director, National Pathology Quality Registry (American Society for Clinical Pathology)

Customer Since

2017

Clinical Registry Use Cases

Quality Improvement Research Regulatory: MIPS, QCDR, QPP

Improving Laboratory Performance With the National Pathology Quality Registry

The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) is the world’s largest professional membership organization for pathologists and laboratory professionals, representing more than 100,000 members dedicated to improving patient care. ASCP’s National Pathology Quality Registry (NPQR), developed and operated by ArborMetrix, is the first national pathology quality and benchmarking program. This clinical data registry captures data measuring adherence to clinical practice guideline recommendations, quality and performance standards, and appropriate use criteria for laboratories.

Transforming Healthcare Data to Optimize Laboratory Performance

ASCP designed and built its registry around the philosophy to measure areas that will improve pathology laboratories, rather than focusing solely on mandated quality reporting. Everything from the measures to reports serve not only the ASCP as an organization and pathology as a specialty but also deliver daily value to pathology labs. For example, the registry leverages ArborMetrix’s unique data blending and analytic capabilities to use clinical and operational data to tell the story of laboratory utilization and efficiency.

“NPQR is a flexible, dynamic tool designed by us in the laboratory, for us,” said Alexandra Brown, M.D., F.A.S.C.P., Medical Director, NQPR. “With NPQR, ASCP and our members are able to improve the quality of what we do, demonstrate the value we add, and elevate the care we provide to our patients.”

NPQR helps laboratories assess and optimize their quality and performance in key ways, such as:

  • Monitoring appropriate utilization of laboratory testing.
  • Improving pre-analytical processes.
  • Optimizing turnaround time and critical value reporting.
  • Establishing best practices through national and peer group comparisons.
  • Assessing analytical and diagnostic accuracy.
  • Satisfy CMS MIPS quality reporting requirements as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR).

Adopting Healthcare Interoperability FHIR Standards

Collecting actionable data is an important step toward building best practices for utilization, benchmarking, and reporting. NPQR emphasizes elements amenable to integration within existing laboratory information systems (LISs) to minimize the need for manual data entry, and thus breaks down barriers for laboratories and practices to participate. In this pursuit, ArborMetrix and ASCP are piloting an interoperability project to adopt the FHIR standard and transfer measures onto the FHIR protocol.