Aim
The aim of the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons National Database is firstly, to improve quality of care for cardiac patients by allowing appropriate comparison of clinical performance with national and international standards, and secondly to provide useful data on changing trends within the speciality.
This will be achieved by:
1. Systematic collection of an agreed minimum dataset (MDS) at each contributing centre on a defined patient population
2. Aggregation and validation of data
3. Analysis and development of risk stratification models for outcome measures
4. Regular feedback to contributing centres
5. Continuous evaluation of performance and changing practice and the influence of risk factors
Pilot Project
A pilot database project was established in 1994 and since then there have been sis database reports, the most recent, ‘Demonstrating Quality’ was published in July 2009 and will be available in pdf format from this website from February 2010. All NHS hospitals and number of private providers contribute to the database. Results of mortality outcomes for all hospitals are available on the care quality commission website here.
Dataset
The first agreed dataset was finalised in June 1996 and has remained unchanged until this 2003. This dataset remains in place, but we have just undertaken a major revision to the dataset which will go live in April 2010. This revision will allow detailed measures of.quality of care in addition to hospital mortality.
Data Collection
Data is collected in all the centres and returned to a central source at the central cardiac audit database (CCAD, part of the NHH Information Centre. All patient identifiers are anonymised in compliance with data protection legislation, but this is done in a way that allows long-term mortality to be tracked. The recent report ‘demonstrating quality’ contain 5 year CABG mortality rates on over 88,000 patients.
Request for data access
Request for data can be made though a datasharing agreement with the SCTS. Please contact sctsadmin@scts.org