CCAS – STS Database Update 2015
By David F. Vener, MD
Texas Children's Hospital
CCAS Database Committee Chair
This year marks the 5th full year since the CCAS-STS Database kicked off data collection on January 1, 2010. In that time we’ve grown remarkably quickly, certainly well beyond my wildest expectations! There are currently approximately 120 pediatric cardiac surgical programs in the United States, of which over 50 now participate in the anesthesia database. We are adding cases with usable data at the rate of approximately 8,000 – 10,000 cases per six month reporting period and more hospitals are joining regularly.
The Fall 2014 harvest, which is our most recent, contains data from 57, 862 patients, 68% are cardiac surgical procedures, 17.5% are cardiac cath procedures and the remainder are from non-cardiac surgical locations such as radiology or general surgery on cardiac patients. Our first research project is currently in the writing phase and data from our efforts have been highlighted at CCAS meetings for the last several years.
New initiatives from the Database Committee are now focused not just on growth, but also making it easier to enter the data automatically by working with the EMR vendors to make the data importable into the database software. Other changes are being mapped out in our data reports, to make them more useful to a greater number of participants as well as a major update to the transfusion and blood-related products portion of the database for all participants.
As a reminder, if you have an idea for a database-related query, the STS divides these into two categories: major and minor. Major queries are those intended for publication and require a significant investment in time for statistical analysis and processing. These typically may take as long as one year to work there way through the various phases of this process. Major queries are vetted initially by the STS Access and Publications Committee to make ensure that the basic questions being asked are relevant to the dataset. The Duke Clinical Research Institute will then do some preliminary analysis to determine whether there is sufficient data to be analyzed appropriately. All major queries are circulated and scored by members of the A & P committee.
Typically, approximately six of these major projects are approved annually, with one of them being “reserved” for anesthesia. Minor queries on the other hand are not intended for publication and most often represent local QI projects or simple data extractions that require no statistical analysis. Minor queries are generally handled by the chair of the STS Congenital Heart Surgery Database, which is currently Marshal Jacobs, MD, and are not necessarily vetted by the entire A & P. Further information about how this process works is at the following link along with the relevant forms: http://www.sts.org/quality-research-patient-safety/research/publications-and-research/access-data-sts-national-database
Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding CCAS database participation, data entry or with research proposals.
