ECRI Institute, an independent nonprofit organization that researches the best approaches to improving patient care, named non-profit Kaiser Permanente the winner of the 5th annual Health Devices Achievement Award for excellence in health technology management.

The award recognizes a member healthcare institution that improves patient safety, reduces costs, or facilitates better strategic management of health technology.

Kaiser Permanente’s winning submission describes its groundbreaking initiatives, the National Total Joint Replacement Registry (TJRR) and the Cardiac Device Registry (CDR). These databases cover almost 150,000 joint-replacement and cardiac implants from regions across the United States. The registries allow the analysis of implant statistics, including complications, failures, replacements, usage, and costs. Mining these data identifies the most effective devices and surgical techniques, as well as patients who are at risk for re-operations and surgical complications.

Kaiser Permanente's project took 10 years to develop. It represents an unprecedented partnership between the surgeons who use implants and the hospitals or health plans that pay for them. TJRR is now the largest population-based total joint registry in the U.S. Overall, more than 1,000 physicians and 50 hospitals are included in both databases.