Clinical Data Abstraction Services for U.S. Hospitals
CRS provides clinical data abstraction services that help hospitals and health systems manage registry workloads accurately, on time, and at a fraction of the cost of building and maintaining an internal team. Our abstractors are clinician-trained, onshore, and familiar with the specific standards of the registries your program participates in - from ACC NCDR and GWTG to STS, MBSAQIP, NSQIP, cancer registries, and beyond. If your registry program is behind on submissions, your internal team is stretched, or you are trying to figure out what clinical data abstraction services actually cost versus what you are paying now - this page is for you.
across all registry programs
across the U.S. and Canada
NCDR, STS, MBSAQIP, and GWTG
How It Works
What Are Clinical Data Abstraction Services?
Clinical data abstraction services involve extracting specific clinical data elements from a patient’s EMR (surgical notes, diagnostic results, procedure documentation) and entering that data accurately into a national registry. It is a specialized task that requires clinical knowledge, registry-specific training, and a high level of precision.
Every major registry has its own ruleset, and abstractors who do not know the difference introduce errors that compound over time: inaccurate benchmarking, failed IRR audits, and submission delays. CRS provides clinical data abstraction services matched to the specific registry your hospital participates in, delivered by trained abstractors and validated through ongoing IRR monitoring at 98.3% or higher.
The Real Cost
What Is It Actually Costing Your Hospital to Abstract Internally?
Most quality directors and CNOs have not fully run the numbers on in-house abstraction, and when they do, it changes the conversation. Salaries, benefits, overtime, turnover coverage, and training time push the real cost anywhere from $90,000 to $150,000 per abstractor per year. In-house abstractors also average around 5.5 productive hours per day. That is the ceiling, and there is no scaling beyond it without adding headcount.
CRS’s clinical data abstraction services typically deliver a 30% or greater cost reduction compared to maintaining in-house staff at equivalent volume and accuracy. You pay for productive output, not salaries, PTO, or turnover coverage. When volume spikes ahead of a submission window or a team member leaves, CRS absorbs it without adding complexity to your operations.
Why CRS for Data Abstraction Services?
There are several companies offering outsourced clinical data abstraction services. The differences come down to accuracy, flexibility, registry breadth, and what kind of partner experience you get.
CRS maintains an Inter-Rater Reliability rate of 98.3% or higher across registry programs. That is not a claim - it is a benchmark we report and monitor continuously. Most of our competitors either do not publish their IRR or report it at a lower threshold. For hospitals that need to pass external audits, maintain accreditation, or submit clean data to benchmarking databases, this number matters.
Every CRS abstractor is U.S.-based. Our team includes registered nurses and clinically experienced professionals trained on the specific registry guidelines for the programs they support. There is no offshore component. You are working with people who understand the clinical context behind the data elements they are extracting.
CRS works within your existing EMR and registry platform setup. We do not require you to switch systems, adopt proprietary software, or integrate with a new platform before we can start. Whether you are using Epic, Cerner, Meditech, or another system, we work inside your environment.
Our clinical data abstraction services cover cardiac, bariatric, surgical quality, cancer, pediatric cardiac, stroke, and more. If your hospital participates in multiple registries across different service lines, CRS can support them all under one engagement - which simplifies vendor management and ensures consistent quality standards across programs.
CRS offers one-year agreements with 30- to 60-day cancellation terms. We do not require multi-year contracts with volume commitments. You can start with one registry, add programs as needed, and scale down if your situation changes. That is a meaningful difference from the large platform-based competitors that lock hospitals into long-term terms before they have seen results.
Most CRS engagements go live within days, not months. There is no technology implementation timeline or integration project standing between signing and your team getting relief. We get trained on your program, establish communication protocols, and start abstracting.
Which Registries Do Our Data Abstraction Services Cover?
CRS provides clinical data abstraction services across more than 25+ specialty registries. The following service lines each have dedicated registry support pages with program–specific detail:
ACC NCDR®, STS, GWTG
MBSAQIP
SEER, NCDB, CIBMTR, others
PC4, PAC3, NPC-QIC, STS Congenital
ACS NSQIP, Pediatric NSQIP, surgical registries
GWTG Stroke, GWTG CAD, vascular-specific registries
If your program participates in a registry not listed here, contact us. Our abstraction services are not limited to the list above.
Participating in multiple registries with one stretched team?
How we fit
Full-Service or Supplemental - How CRS Fits Your Team
CRS works differently depending on what your hospital needs. Some programs come to us because they have no internal abstraction staff at all and need a fully outsourced solution from day one. Others have an internal team that is overwhelmed, behind on submissions, or temporarily short-staffed due to turnover, leave, or a volume surge ahead of a submission window.
Our clinical data abstraction services are designed to work either way. Full-service means CRS handles all abstraction for the registry programs you specify – your team stays involved in oversight, auditing, and communication, but the abstraction workload shifts entirely to us. Supplemental means we work alongside your internal abstractors to handle overflow, backlog clearance, or coverage during gaps. The engagement model is flexible and does not require you to choose one path permanently.
Onboarding for either model is fast. We review your program setup, registry requirements, and EMR access protocols, assign abstractors trained on your specific registries, and establish a communication and reporting cadence. Most programs are running within a matter of days.
Areas We Serve
CRS provides clinical data abstraction services across more than 25+ specialty registries. The following service lines each have dedicated registry support pages with program–specific detail:
| Northeast | Southeast | Midwest | South | West |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY Boston, MA Philadelphia, PA Baltimore, MD Pittsburgh, PA |
Atlanta, GA Charlotte, NC Nashville, TN Miami, FL Orlando, FL |
Chicago, IL Detroit, MI Cleveland, OH Minneapolis, MN St. Louis, MO |
Dallas, TX Houston, TX San Antonio, TX New Orleans, LA Oklahoma City, OK |
Los Angeles, CA Phoenix, AZ Seattle, WA Denver, CO Portland, OR |
Full-Service or Supplemental - How CRS Fits Your Team
| In-House Abstraction | CRS Data Abstraction Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost | $70,000–$150,000 (salary, benefits, overhead) | 30%+ lower - no benefits, no PTO, no turnover costs |
| IRR accuracy | Varies - depends on training and oversight | 98.3%+ validated across all registry programs |
| Scalability | Add headcount to scale - slow, expensive | Scale up or down without adding FTEs |
| Registry coverage | Limited to what internal staff are trained on | 25+ registries across specialties |
| Turnover risk | High - abstractors are in demand | No impact on your operations - CRS absorbs it |
| Platform | Uses your existing systems | Platform agnostic - works in your EMR and registry tools |
| Onboarding time | Weeks to months | Days |
| Contract flexibility | Permanent hire | 1-year agreement, 30–60 day cancellation |
What the Engagement Looks Like
Contact
You contact us and describe your program - which registries you participate in, your current volume, what is working and what is not. We can do this in a 30-minute call.
Engagement Details
We establish access protocols, assign abstractors trained on your registry programs, and set up a communication and reporting cadence.
Delivery
Ongoing: CRS monitors IRR continuously, provides audit support when needed, and scales up or down as your program requires.
Cost Comparison
We provide a cost comparison and proposed engagement structure. This is where most quality directors and CNOs see the full picture of what in-house abstraction is actually costing them.
Launch
Abstraction begins. Most programs go live within days. You receive regular reporting on volume, accuracy, and IRR.
Frequently Asked Questions About CRS's Clinical Data Abstraction Services
CRS handles the full abstraction workflow for the registry programs you specify: chart review, data element extraction from EMRs, entry into the registry platform, and ongoing quality monitoring. We also provide IRR monitoring and reporting, audit support, and coordination around submission deadlines. If you need accreditation prep, abstractor training for your internal team, or data analytics support, those are available as additional services.
Accuracy is maintained through ongoing Inter-Rater Reliability monitoring. CRS maintains an IRR of 98.3% or higher across all registry programs. Our abstractors are trained on registry-specific data definitions and go through a structured onboarding process for each program they support. We conduct regular internal audits and provide IRR reports to our clients as part of standard reporting.
Yes. All CRS abstractors are U.S.-based and onshore. There is no offshore component to our clinical data abstraction services. Our team includes registered nurses and clinically trained professionals with direct experience in the registries they support.
CRS is platform agnostic. We work within your existing EMR - Epic, Cerner, Meditech, and others - and within your existing registry platform. We do not require you to adopt proprietary software, integrate with a new system, or change your existing setup. Our abstractors access your systems using the same credentials and workflows your internal team uses.
Most CRS engagements are operational within days of signing. There is no technology implementation timeline. We review your program setup, establish EMR access, assign trained abstractors, and begin working. For programs with multiple registries or more complex workflows, onboarding may take one to two weeks, but that is the exception.
Yes. Backlog clearance is one of the most common reasons hospitals contact us. If you are behind on submissions ahead of a registry deadline, CRS can mobilize quickly to clear the backlog while also transitioning to ongoing abstraction support. We handle both within the same engagement.
CRS supports more than 25 registries across cardiac, surgical, bariatric, cancer, pediatric, and stroke specialties. This includes ACC NCDR programs (CathPCI, Chest Pain MI, ICD, LAAO), AHA GWTG programs, STS adult cardiac, MBSAQIP, NSQIP, NCDB cancer registry, PC4, PAC3, Core Measures, and others. If your program participates in a registry not listed here, contact us - our coverage extends beyond this list.
CRS uses case-based or hourly pricing depending on the program and volume. There are no hidden fees, no monthly technology charges, and no minimum volume commitments. You pay for productive abstraction work. Most hospitals see a 30% or greater cost reduction compared to in-house abstraction when they account for salaries, benefits, overtime, turnover, and training costs. Contact us to see our pricing sheet!
Yes. Many CRS clients have internal abstractors and use CRS for supplemental support - overflow coverage, backlog clearance, or coverage during turnover. We work alongside your existing team rather than replacing it. The engagement scope is whatever your program needs.
CRS serves hospitals and health systems across all 50 U.S. states. Our team is fully remote, which means there is no geographic limitation on where we can support. We work with programs in major urban markets and in rural and smaller-market hospitals where finding qualified abstractors locally is especially difficult.