Health and health care registries in the Netherlands 1993-2010: a provisional review
Data from health and health care registries and surveys are a strong fundament for many policy decisions. However, historical descriptions of the rise and fall of these registries are rare. An inventory of 183 Dutch health and health care registries in 2010 is compared with its 1993 predecessor containing 163 registries. Both inventories contain short descriptions of these data sources and are structured along the same lines. According to the 2010 inventory, 140 registries started after 1990 and 60 registries are expecting changes in the near future in content, method or organization. Several forces shape these dynamics, ranging from changes in medical and information technology to the introduction of the regulated market paradigm in the politicalsteering of the health system. Dutch government therefore installed a project and a website (www.zorggegevens.nl) to function as a knowledge platform to monitor and analyze these changes.
