Diseases and Health Outcomes Registry Systems in I.R. Iran: Successful Initiative to Improve Public Health Programs, Quality of Care, and Biomedical Research

Registration systems for diseases and other health outcomes provide important resource for biomedical research, as well as tools for public health surveillance and improvement of quality of care. The Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) of Iran launched a national program to establish registration systems for different diseases and health outcomes. Based on the national program, we organized several workshops and training programs and disseminated the concepts and knowledge of the registration systems. Following a call for proposals, we received 100 applications and after thorough evaluation and corrections by the principal investigators, we approved and granted about 80 registries for three years. Having strong steering committee, committed executive and scientific group, establishing national and international collaboration, stating clear objectives, applying feasible software, and considering stable financing were key components for a successful registry and were considered in the evaluation processes. We paid particulate attention to non-communicable diseases, which constitute an emerging public health problem. We prioritized establishment of regional population-based cancer registries (PBCRs) in 10 provinces in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This initiative was successful and registry programs became popular among researchers and research centers and created several national and international collaborations in different areas to answer important public health and clinical questions. In this paper, we report the details of the program and list of registries that were granted in the first round.