FinSpine – nationwide spine surgery quality registry in Finland
Finland’s nationwide spine registry delivers complete, reliable data with minimal effort
How do you build a national quality registry that clinicians actually use and patients actually answer? A peer-reviewed study in the European Spine Journal describes how the Finnish Spine Register, FinSpine, was developed, designed and validated, and what it delivers in everyday clinical use.
The results speak for themselves: 100% accurate data, less than 3 minutes of manual input per case, and up to 90% patient engagement.
About FinSpine
FinSpine is one of BCB Medical’s Clinical Information Management systems. It was designed together with clinical experts in spine orthopaedics and neurosurgery in Finland, and has been in use since 2016.
Today, FinSpine is used in all Finnish public hospitals that perform spine surgery. Since January 2023, it has held the status of a national quality registry with continuous government funding. BCB Medical is responsible for the technical development of the system.
FinSpine integrates data automatically from electronic patient records. Patient-reported outcome and experience measures (PROMs and PREMs) are collected through links sent by text message or email, with automatic reminders.
Key benefits of the FinSpine registry
100% accurate data
FinSpine was validated against the Finnish national hospital discharge register (HILMO). When spine procedures from 2017–2018 were compared, no patients were missing from FinSpine: the registry data proved to be 100% accurate.
Minimised manual input: less than 3 minutes per case
Much of the data flows in automatically from electronic patient records. The surgeon completes the essential procedure details in a standardised three-step process, each step taking less than one minute. This keeps the registration burden low and supports high surgeon compliance.
Up to 90% patient engagement
Patients answer questionnaires digitally, at home, through text message or email links, with automatic reminders. In hospitals with dedicated registry coordinators, response rates of up to 90% before surgery and 80% after surgery have been achieved.
Why nationwide quality monitoring matters
With complete coverage and accurate data, a nationwide registry becomes much more than a database. It gives Finnish spine care:
- Trustworthy, validated data, based on reliable and accurate registrations
- Benchmarking based on reliable data, so hospitals can compare their outcomes fairly
- High-quality national and international research
- Better ability to identify best treatment practices
- Ultimately, improved patient care
Read the full publication
The study describes FinSpine’s development, design, validation and first outcome results in detail. It is open access.
Marjamaa J, Huttunen J, Kankare J, Malmivaara A, Pernaa K, Salmenkivi J, Pekkanen L. The Finnish Spine Register (FinSpine): development, design, validation and utility. European Spine Journal 2023;32:3731–3743. DOI: 10.1007/s00586-023-07874-3