Data Management and Quality Improvement

Shipley Cardiothoracic Center’s dedicated data coordinators manage the input, analysis, and reporting of cardiothoracic surgery clinical information.  Our data managers oversee four unique registries run by The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS), National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR), and The American College of Cardiology (ACC):
 
STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD)
Cardiac surgery patient data
 
STS General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD)
Thoracic surgery patient data

STS Atrial Fibrillation Database
Maze procedures ± atrial appendage occlusion

NCDR’s STS/ACC Transcatheter Valve Therapies Registry
TAVR, TMVR, and MitraClip® procedures
 
 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is the gold standard for reporting cardiac surgery program outcomes, and we take great pride in being an STS National Database Participant over the past decade.

Annually, our data managers enter over one million data points into registries.  In addition to national registries, we have a comprehensive proprietary data registry for our atrial fibrillation patients, that includes all patients who have had procedures in our institution by our multidisciplinary team. This allows us to not only track procedural details but also provides indefinite follow-up outcomes across surgical and catheter-based therapies.
 
The Shipley data team collaborate with physicians and administrators to facilitate quality improvement, education and research endeavors.  They support the review of outcomes data for real-time critical analysis and participate in investigations such as:

• Effectiveness of Minimally Invasive Left Atrial Appendage Exclusion on Stroke Reduction 

Principal Investigators: Nalani Yaeger, BSN RN, Joseph Deily, PA-C, Michael DeFrain, MD