The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a rapidly evolving pandemic that is a major ongoing threat to health and health system operations in the Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, and Niagara regions. Data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic must be standardized to allow high-quality research and quality improvement, as well as the potential to contribute to global research efforts. The multi-regional hospital Coronavirus (COVID-19) Registry (COREG) is a comprehensive registry platform that facilitates uniform data collection of patients both tested for COVID-19 and those admitted with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. It is an extension of the ISARIC-WHO case report form (CRF) to capture information of local importance to understand spread, disease course, and comparative outcomes.

COREG is a platform to collect detailed case data on confirmed COVID-19 hospital inpatients, as well as positive outpatients. It is the only such platform that can provide McMaster researchers and partners with complete regional level clinical data on COVID-19 cases for informing rapid decision-making and projections, sub-studies, extensions, and linkage. We will also leverage the COREG for the functional recovery sub-study which will determine the trajectory of physical functional recovery post-hospital discharge for survivors of serious-COVID 19 illness to understand their critical rehabilitative care needs.

OBJECTIVES

Our aim is to collect data on the impact and burden of COVID-19 that can inform and support real-time local clinical and policy decisions. Specifically, our objectives are to:

1. Create a COVID-19 admission case registry as a local research and quality improvement platform for the COVID-19 pandemic; and

2. Collect data that can inform local pandemic decisions and evaluation, including incidence, vulnerability, complications, and clinical course of COVID-19 patients.

DESIGN

We have established the McMaster Coronavirus (COVID-19) Registry (COREG), an ISARIC-WHO compatible, comprehensive platform that facilitates uniform data collection of COVID-19. COREG is an extension of the ISARIC-WHO case report form (CRF) designed to capture local information on transmission, disease- burden, course, and outcomes of COVID-19 cases from all COVID-19 charting hospitals in the Waterloo, Hamilton, and Niagara Regions of Ontario, Canada (Population > 1,500,000).

The registry includes data abstracted from existing chart data generated during routine clinical care. A waiver of informed consent is granted. Data categories to be collected follow the ISARIC-WHO CRF and include demographics, co-morbidities, pre-admission medications, signs and symptoms, diagnostic results, in-hospital interventions and health outcomes (medical complications during hospitalization including ICU and death). These data are only available through manual abstraction from existing patient medical records collected routinely as part of clinical care. Cases are identified by the Infection Prevention and Control (IPAC) at each site and records are accessed remotely and securely by research and medical staff.

SITES

Our registry is actively collecting data remotely into the registry from hospitals in Waterloo, Hamilton, and Niagara regions.

• Grand River Hospital (GRH)

• Hamilton Health Sciences-Hamilton General Site (HGH)

• Hamilton Health Sciences -Juravinski Site (JH)

• Niagara Health

• St. Joseph’s Hamilton (SJH)

• St. Mary’s General Hospital (SMGH)

MORE INFORMATION

For more information or specific questions regarding COREG, please contact Andrew Costa at acosta@mcmaster.ca or Darly Dash at dashd@mcmaster.ca.