Outsource Data Abstraction Services: Accelerate Registry Participation Without Burning Out Your Team

Why Hospitals Choose to Outsource Data Abstraction Services

Staff burnout is a well-documented challenge for hospitals. Healthcare advocacy groups, including the U.S. Office of the Surgeon General, have raised concerns about health worker burnout and its damaging effects on both hospital operations and patient care. The Surgeon General specifically identifies organizational factors such as “excessive workloads” and “administrative burdens” as leading causes.

Burnout also accelerates turnover, disrupting compliance efforts, quality reporting, and patient outcomes. For quality and safety leaders, reducing burnout and turnover is essential. One strategy to relieve administrative pressure is to find a reliable partner to absorb the burden of registry and Core Measures abstraction.

What Is Registry Abstraction and Why Does It Matter for Hospitals?

Hospitals that participate in clinical registries take on a significant workload as part of their commitment to meeting quality and performance standards. Registry abstraction, the process of transferring clinical data from medical records into specialized registries, helps quality teams benchmark performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

Commonly reported registries include:

• National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP) from the American College of Surgeons
• STS National Database from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons
• Get With the Guidelines from the American Heart Association
• National Trauma Data Bank from the American College of Surgeons

How Data Abstraction Outsourcing Supports Quality Improvement

Clinical registries provide hospitals with valuable, data-driven performance improvement opportunities. For example, the American College of Surgeons describes NSQIP as “a variable-based data registry designed to improve hospital-wide quality across all surgical departments.”

While registry participation is valuable, it is also resource-intensive. In-house abstraction can strain operations, safety initiatives, and staff morale. By adding a clinical data abstraction outsourcing partner to their staffing strategy, quality teams gain time to act on registry findings instead of being consumed by data entry.

Benefits of outsourced data abstraction services include:

• Operations: Maintain consistent registry participation and data accuracy without overloading internal staff.
• Safety: Ensure data integrity that drives outcome improvement.
• Staff: Reduce administrative burden, preventing burnout and turnover.
• Patients: Support evidence-based care improvements through reliable data flow.

Financial Benefits of Outsourcing Data Abstraction Services

Beyond time savings, outsourcing offers clear financial advantages. Hiring and training in-house abstractors is costly, and turnover drives additional recruitment expenses. According to NSI Nursing Solutions, the average cost of replacing a bedside nurse is more than $56,000 per departure.

By comparison, outsourced data abstraction services provide predictable costs and scalability. Hospitals pay only for the registry or core measure abstraction they need, without the overhead of staffing, training, and backfilling positions. This predictable model allows quality and safety leaders to better align resources with strategic initiatives and demonstrate ROI to hospital leadership.

Related Resource: How to Create a Cost-Benefit Analysis for Outsourcing Data Abstraction in Under 3 Minutes

How Core Measure Abstraction Outsourcing Improves Staff Retention

The healthcare sector continues to face a staffing and turnover crisis. A June 2023 study, Retaining Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review of Strategies for Sustaining Power in the Workplace, found that nurse and physician turnover creates both financial and non-financial burdens, impacting quality and continuity of care.

The 2025 NSI National Health Care Retention & RN Staffing Report found that the national hospital turnover rate is 18.3% and that registered nurse turnover is 16.4%. Leadership positions also experience attrition (9.2% for nursing directors and 9.1% for hospital management in 2024), numbers that still carry significant financial implications.

High turnover disrupts compliance and weakens morale. The U.S. Surgeon General emphasizes that “inefficient work processes, burdensome documentation requirements, and limited autonomy can result in negative patient outcomes, a loss of meaning at work, and health worker burnout.”

The Surgeon General also identifies interventions that align closely with core measure abstraction outsourcing and related strategies:

• Reduce administrative burden so staff can devote more time to patient care and improvement initiatives. The 25×5 approach from the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) promotes cutting documentation requirements through staffing adjustments, scribes, or automation.
• Optimize technology to let staff focus on patients and quality. Partnering with experts in data abstraction outsourcing ensures compliance and accuracy without diverting frontline resources.

Risk Mitigation and Compliance Assurance Through Registry Abstraction Outsourcing

Hospitals face strict deadlines and accuracy requirements for registry submissions. Errors or delays can trigger compliance risks, affect accreditation status, or undermine value-based reimbursement programs.

Partnering with experts in outsourced registry abstraction reduces these risks. Specialist teams are trained on evolving registry specifications and audit requirements, ensuring submissions are both accurate and timely. This reduces exposure to regulatory penalties while strengthening hospitals’ reputation for data reliability and quality reporting excellence.

Strengthening Quality Programs Through Outsourced Data Abstraction Services

Quality departments are not immune to the high rates of burnout affecting healthcare broadly. In-house data abstraction consumes substantial staff resources that could otherwise be devoted to patient safety and quality initiatives.

The Surgeon General defines burnout as “an occupational syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress due to an imbalance between job demands and resources. It is characterized by having at least one of the following feelings when thinking about one’s job: emotional exhaustion, feeling detached from and cynical about work, or reduced professional efficacy.”

Outsourcing registry and core measure abstraction reduces administrative barriers, reinvigorates staff morale, strengthens compliance efforts, and aligns hospital resources with strategic goals. For quality and safety leaders, the benefits of outsourced data abstraction services are clear: cost savings, improved patient outcomes, reduced compliance risk, improved staff morale, and sustained participation in evidence-based programs.

When the Assistant Vice President of Quality & Patient Safety at Loma Linda University Health was asked if she thought her former abstractors found their new work on performance improvement more fulfilling, she replied: “100%.” Twice.

“All of my individuals who did abstraction previously are nurses. So for them to see that their knowledge of the data, workflows, and processes, and their contribution with the team in making care better for patients, that’s invaluable,” she said. “Because they then get to look at what’s happened with our data outcomes, celebrate those things, and move on to the next area of opportunity. It’s very fulfilling for those individuals. It is important to folks to know that the work that they’re doing is positively impacting patient outcomes.” Read the full data abstraction outsourcing case study here.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do outsourced data abstraction services impact hospital staffing budgets?
Outsourcing reduces the need to recruit, train, and backfill abstractor positions. Hospitals can scale services up or down based on registry and reporting demands, converting what was once a fixed staffing expense into a flexible, predictable cost model.

What compliance risks can registry abstraction outsourcing help prevent?
Dedicated abstraction partners stay current with registry specification updates and submission requirements. This reduces the risk of missed deadlines, inaccurate abstraction, or noncompliance with regulatory programs that could affect hospital reimbursement or accreditation.

How does core measure abstraction outsourcing support patient care?
By removing the administrative burden of core measure reporting, outsourcing frees quality and safety teams to focus on performance improvement projects, patient safety initiatives, and bedside priorities that have a direct impact on outcomes.

Can outsourced data abstraction services integrate with a hospital’s existing EHR or quality platforms?
Yes. Most outsourcing providers have workflows that align with major EHR systems and can deliver data in formats that integrate with hospital dashboards and analytics platforms. This ensures continuity of reporting while easing staff workload.

What should hospitals look for in a data abstraction outsourcing partner?
Key criteria include proven accuracy rates, experience with multiple registries, scalability to handle fluctuating workloads, and strong security practices to ensure HIPAA compliance. Asking about turnaround times and reporting transparency is also critical. Check out this Guide to Choosing a Registry Outsourcing Partner.