A brief introduction to the National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases

F. Wolfe¹, K. Michaud^2,3

¹Arthritis Research Center Foundation, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita, Kansas; ²National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases, Wichita, Kansas; ³Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.

ABSTRACT
The National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases (NDB) is a research data bank with a broad agenda and approach to important clinical, regulatory, epidemiological, safety, effectiveness, outcome and patient care questions that cannot be answered by conventional data banks. It has systematic, ongoing quality control programs that assure high quality data. NDB-developed programs result in very efficient analytic capabilities and rapid publication.

Key words
Database, data, outcomes, research, rheumatic diseases

Please address correspondence to: Frederick Wolfe, MD, National Data Bank for Rheumatic Diseases, Arthritis Research Center Foundation, 1035 N. Emporia, Suite 230, Wichita, KS 67214, USA.
E-mail: fwolfe@arthritis-research.org

Clin Exp Rheumatol 2005; 23 (suppl. 39): S168-S171.
© CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL RHEUMATOLOGY 2005.