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Contact: media@acc.org;
800-253-4636; 301-897-5400, ext. 628
August 13, 2001
ACC
Invites Comments on First Standards for Data Collection
(BETHESDA,
MD)—The quality of health care provided to people
with acute heart conditions should get a boost from
a new set of standard terms and guidelines for data
collection developed by the American College of Cardiology.
The
Acute Coronary Syndromes (ACS) Clinical Data Standards
provide a common terminology for describing the care
and outcomes of patients with acute heart conditions,
including heart attack and unstable angina. The standards
will permit more accurate evaluation of the type and
quality of cardiac care provided to patients and more
accurate comparison of findings from studies of treatments
for ACS.
"Standardization
will help facilitate efforts to improve the quality
of cardiac care," said Dr. Christopher Cannon, a cardiologist
at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical
School in Boston and chair of the panel of experts that
wrote the ACS standards. "Quality improvement is a major
focus of individual hospitals and states as well as
on a national level. Collecting accurate data is a major
factor in monitoring and improving care. Clear definitions
and guidance about how to monitor care should help improve
quality."
A
30-day comment period for the ACS standards begins today,
Aug. 13. The standards are posted on the ACC Web site.
During the comment period, any individual or organization
can review the standards and offer feedback regarding
the document. Following the comment period, a final
draft of the standards will be posted on the ACC Web
site and published in the Journal of the American
College of Cardiology.
Two
years in development, the ACS standards evolved from
an extensive review and discussion of the terminology
and methods used in clinical studies, registries of
clinical data, and published articles related to the
care of patients with ACS. As a primary objective, members
of the writing committee sought to identify the best
definitions and standards for clinical care and research.
"We
have tried to make the definitions as clear as possible
and as useful as possible," said Dr. Cannon. "We want
people to be able to begin using the standards in the
development of quality-improvement efforts and new clinical
trials and data registries as soon as they are finalized."
Lack
of standardization in terminology and data collection
has posed a major obstacle to efforts aimed at improving
cardiac care and comparing results of studies, said
Dr. Ralph Brindis, chief of cardiac services at Kaiser-Permanente
in San Francisco.
"The
document provides tools and guidance for collecting
data in a standardized manner and for comparing different
data sets," said Dr. Brindis, who also chairs the ACC
Task Force on Clinical Data Standards. "At times, medicine
seems to operate in a Tower of Babel, where different
terms mean different things to different people. By
having standard language tools, we will be able to make
logical and accurate comparisons in our assessment of
the care provided to patients who have ACS."
The
standards provide a single definition of a heart attack,
for example, which can be used in all clinical trials,
said Dr. Cannon. Such standardization will permit more
accurate and useful comparisons of different studies
and data registries. Comparison of cardiac care provided
at different hospitals also will become more precise
and meaningful.
The
ACS standards are the first in a series of documents
the ACC is developing. Dr. Brindis said two other writing
groups from his task force have begun work on standards
for heart failure and atrial fibrillation.
The
American College of Cardiology, a 26,000-member nonprofit
professional medical society and teaching institution,
is dedicated to fostering optimal cardiovascular care
and disease prevention through professional education,
promotion of research, leadership in the development
of standards and guidelines, and the formulation of
health care policy.
The
American College of Cardiology (ACC) provides these
new reports of clinical studies published in the Journal
of the American College of Cardiology as a service
to physicians, the media, the public, and other interested
parties. However, statements or opinions expressed in
these reports reflect the view of the author(s) and
do not represent official policy of the ACC unless stated
so.
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