Croatia’s national diabetes registry was first established in 2000. Called CroDiab, the registry is a web-based system for collecting the data of diabetic patients, which allows for the analysis of health indices with the aim of improving the health care of people with diabetes.
Data regarding people with diabetes is collected from Croatia’s Health Insurance Fund, other registries, reports from the primary care level, physicians and health centres, and reports from hospitals regarding their patients with diabetes that were hospitalized in the previous year. Since 2004 use of the CroDiab registry has been mandatory for all primary and secondary health care physicians who have patients with diabetes in their care.
“CroDiab is the only registry in Croatia that directly receives data from diabetes panels completed by general practitioners,” says Dr Tamara Poljicanin, head of the CroDiab registry at the Croatian Institute of Public Health. “Diabetes panels are especially valuable in public health because not only are they used to monitor indicators but they also serve as a checklist for general practitioners and a reminder to regularly monitor patients and perform annual diabetes control, the intervention that was proven to have a significant impact on improvement of diabetes control.”
Registry also used for public health interventions
In addition to monitoring diabetes indicators, CroDiab data is also used for public health interventions. For example, the analysis of indicators revealed the problem of unavailability of HbA1c screening (a test used to monitor type 1 and type 2 diabetes) at the primary level of health care in Croatia. At the initiative of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, since 2013 general practitioners have been able to indicate this test, while in 2021 the albumin-to-creatinine ratio (a test that determines whether people with diabetes have kidney problems) was also enabled at the primary level of health care, thus becoming available to the entire population.
Continuous development of the registry takes place at the initiative of, and in cooperation with, all relevant professional associations and institutions, but also as part of international projects related to diabetes and registries, which continues to strengthen cross-sectoral cooperation and improves the quality of data in the registry.
Key plans for future development involve providing insight into patients' own data within a central portal on health-related information at the national level, which has been shown to empower patients and better regulate diabetes, as well as increasing the proportion of general practitioners completing panels.
“We are trying to empower patients to actively participate in the treatment of their condition. I believe that with CroDiab we will not only manage to more actively involve patients in their health care, but we will also have a powerful tool that will have an impact on all levels of care to ensure a similar quality of care for patients with diabetes in Croatia,” says Dr Poljicanin.
This feature story is one in a series developed for the WHO European conference on tackling NCDs through digital solutions – showcasing how digital technologies can be harnessed to provide smarter health care.