Uncorrected Proof Health Scope. In Press(In Press):e104753. Published online 2020 August 10. doi: 10.5812/jhealthscope.104753. Letter Toward Controlling Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic by Integrated Registry Systems Leila Keikha 1, * , Zeinab Mohammadzadeh 2 and Elham Maserat 2 1 Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran 2 Department of Health Information Technology, School of Management and Medical Informatics, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran * Corresponding author: Department of Medical Library and Information, Paramedical School, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences, Zahedan, Iran. Email: leilakeikha@gmail.com Received 2020 May 10; Revised 2020 July 12; Accepted 2020 July 24. Keywords: Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), Registry, Data Management Dear Editor, Several pneumonia cases with unknown etiology first appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The clinical findings of this disease resembled viral pneumonia, which raised concerns at the Chinese and international levels (1- 4). The virus spread rapidly throughout the world and af- fected many people (1, 5). The World Health Organization (WHO) named this disease COVID-19. Based on the statis- tics from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Pre- vention, the fatality rate is 2.3%. The number of mortalities is higher in older adults (14.8% in people over 80 years). Moreover, adults with comorbid diseases (cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus, chronic respiratory disease, hy- pertension, and cancer) are more at risk (6). Due to the potential and nature of COVID-19, serious surveillance and monitoring systems are needed to assess the status of the disease (7). Disease registration systems can be designed to achieve this goal (8). It is specified as “an organized system that collects the epidemiological and clinical data to evaluate outcomes for a population defined by a particular disease, condition, or exposure” (9, 10)). In- formation extracted from these systems is used for evalu- ating the quality of care and follow-up of patients, creat- ing standards of care, monitoring the disease, community assessment, comparison of processes and care outcomes, evaluating disease control programs, planning, policy- making, improving patient outcomes, research, and edu- cation (11, 12). All of these goals will be achieved if standard, accurate, and timely data are recorded (13). The experience of similar diseases like SARS (severe acute respiratory syn- drome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) has confirmed the importance of registry systems in optimal disease management (8). Developing a registration system for COVID-19 and col- lecting information about patient history, diagnosis, treat- ment, and follow-up through electronic systems can lead to better disease management. Moreover, it determines the effectiveness of treatment and clinical interventions for COVID-19 (14). In addition, it offers the opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality and particularly sudden unexpected death due to COVID-19. It is important to note that connecting the COVID- 19 registry system to other registry systems and elec- tronic health records (EHR) can also be used to obtain in- formation about patients or identify people who are at greater risk of this disease. For example, the rheumatol- ogy COVID-19 registry collects information about patients with rheumatology who have been affected by COVID-19 (15). CAPACITY-COVID is a European registry to determine the role of cardiovascular diseases in the COVID-19 pan- demic. The goal was to manage cardiac complications in patients with COVID-19 and determine the vulnerability of patients with underlying cardiovascular disease to be af- fected by COVID-19 (16). COVID-19 specific data elements added to the American Heart Association’s Get with The Guidelines Registry Modules that is a registry system for capturing data on patients with cardiac disease (17, 18). The Sina Hospital COVID-19 registry (SHCo-19R) system col- lects information about clinical presentations, diagnostic workups, treatments, hospital courses, and follow-ups of patients (19). Isfahan COVID 19 Registry (I CORE) collects data according to the WHO protocols and questionnaires (20). Another study proposed that 44 data items, includ- ing clinical and nonclinical data to be collected for COVID- 19 (8). Based on the WHO, the registry of COVID-19 should Copyright © 2020, Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.