The economic characteristics of registries and their policy implications

BACKGROUND: The discipline of economics supplies principles that may contribute to the discourse about investments in trauma registries and the role of the public sector, as well as the optimal use of the datasets those investments create. METHODS: Principles from production economics, information economics, and public economics are employed to explore the reasons that trauma registries may be prone to underfunding, relative to their value, and to describe a threat to value maximization. The typical production activities and cost structures of registries are analyzed, along with the way registries generate social benefits. Assuming that the purpose of a trauma registry is to maximize the value or social good it creates, a number of investment, governance, and pricing principles are then proposed. RESULTS: Trauma registries are multiproduct enterprises. They are generally characterized by large and indivisible fixed, joint costs, and relatively low marginal costs. This implies that registries are subject to strong economies of scale and scope. Additionally, because registry data are not depleted by use, the registry's output is, technically, nonrival in consumption. The value created by registries may be maximized when a marginal-cost pricing policy is adopted. This means that the optimal price schedule for access to trauma registry data are likely to be zero, or close to zero, for some users. DISCUSSION: The economic principles presented here complement the contributions from other disciplines in discussions about the establishment of new registries or about improving some aspects of existing registries.