The American Urological Association (AUA) is pleased to announce it has entered into a collaboration with Verana Health, digital health company committed to delivering quality insights from real-world data. Verana Health is entrusted by key medical societies to manage clinical data registries and apply advanced analytics to accelerate medical innovations that promote quality of care and quality of life. 

What is the relationship between the AUA and Verana Health?

On April 13, 2020, the American Urological Association (AUA) announced that it entered into a collaboration with Verana Health to advance the AUA Quality (AQUA) Registry. The alliance between the AUA and Verana Health is key to the AUA’s ongoing efforts to advance the highest standards of urologic clinical care through the use of its AUA Quality (AQUA) Registry.

This relationship aims to enhance the breadth and depth of the AQUA Registry data to facilitate the discovery of leading-edge treatment options and improve outcomes for the millions of people affected by prostate cancer, bladder cancer and other urologic disease.

Why did the AUA enter into this agreement?

Since its launch in 2014, the AQUA Registry is quickly becoming a definitive resource for informing and advancing urology within the United States. In order to truly fulfill the original vision of the AQUA Registry, and ensure its long-term sustainability, the AUA needed to expand its partnerships.

The Verana Health alliance is a paradigm-shifting collaboration for the AQUA Registry and will help enhance the quality of the registry data, expand benefits to registry participants, grow the registry to cover all urology subspecialty areas and, over time, implement a patient reportable outcomes component.

What value will this collaboration provide to the urological community and our patients?

Through this alliance, we will be a positive force in advancing urologic research and knowledge, and ultimately improve patient outcomes for those suffering with urologic disease.

Together we will build new analytical applications and user interfaces to advance the science of urology, fuel research discoveries and ultimately improve the lives of the patients.

How will AQUA Registry participants benefit from the collaboration with Verana Health?

As a participant you will have access to new practice and physician tools developed by Verana Health. These innovative tools will further your ability to capture and analyze the patient experience; deeply understand real-world patient outcomes and physician behavior; as well as support research and other scientific studies aimed at accelerating new treatments and cures for individuals affected by urologic disease.

We are excited about this alliance and look forward to working with you to maximize the benefits for you and your practice.

Has the AUA sold the AQUA Registry to Verana Health?

No, the AUA has not sold the AQUA Registry. The AUA continues to own and operate the AQUA Registry and will continue to be the primary interface with all AQUA Registry participants. Subscriber benefits, including benchmarking and federal quality reporting capabilities, will remain unchanged.

Will this affect how my practice engages with the AQUA Registry?

No. All AQUA participants will continue to use the same interface and dashboard, and will not experience any changes in how they use the registry or interact with the AUA team. All subscriber benefits, including federal government quality reporting capabilities and performance benchmarking, as well as Practice Assessment Protocol credit for the American Board of Urology’s Lifelong Learning Program (formerly MOC) – will remain the same.

Questions about the AQUA Registry

See the AQUA Registry website.

What is the AQUA Registry?

Developed by urologists for urologists, the AUA Quality (AQUA) Registry is a national Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) designed to measure, report and improve healthcare quality and patient outcomes.

I'm not a part of the AQUA Registry but am interested in joining. How can I participate?

Get in touch with the AQUA team using this form. 

Questions about Security

Find more information on Verana Health’s privacy policies on their website. 

How is the AUA handling privacy and security of data as part of the collaboration?

Protecting the privacy of AUA members and their patients is a core tenet of the AUA’s mission and our number one priority. We remain in full compliance with the privacy and security requirements outlined within the AQUA Registry Participation Agreement, including all applicable statutes and regulations, under federal and state laws, as well as the privacy and security regulations promulgated under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Our commitment to data integrity and to providing secure, effective and sound data governance has not, and will not, change.

How is the data de-identified?

The AUA and Verana Health are jointly committed to protecting the privacy of our members and their patients. As part of this collaboration, the AUA will license de-identified data from the AQUA Registry to Verana Health – for use by members and industry partners – to help advance the science of urology, fuel research discoveries and ultimately improve the lives of the patients being cared for each day. AQUA Registry data will be de-identified and developed into HIPAA-compliant datasets by an independent team of highly-qualified personnel from Verana Health. To further ensure the privacy of members and patients, de-identified data will also be verified by a third-party statistician as being de-identified and an established firewall will be in place to ensure the data remains protected.

Will patient- or physician-identified data be used or sublicensed by Verana Health?

No. The AUA will only allow for the license of de-identified data from the AQUA Registry. Any research project commissioned by members, researchers or other third parties will only be developed using de-identified data. Identifiable data cannot, and will not, be sold.

Will third-party companies be able to look at identifiable physician or patient records or data?

Physician and patient privacy is of the utmost importance to the AUA. Established firewalls, as well as third-party verification protocols, will be in place to safeguard any identifiable data from the registry and prevent it from being used or viewed by third parties. Third parties will not have access to any physician or patient names or other data that identifies individual patients or physicians.

What are Verana Health's commitments to data privacy and security?

The duty to be responsible stewards of patient information is one of Verana Health’s core tenets. Data privacy and security are at the forefront of everything we do.

Verana Health holds a HITRUST CSF^® Certification for safeguarding Protected Health Information. This certification validates Verana Health’s commitment to meeting key regulations and protecting sensitive information.

Verana Health stores all data securely in HIPAA-compliant cloud servers.