The ACC and its National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) are committed to enhancing the quality of cardiovascular care. NCDR collects prospective clinical data, develops risk prediction models, and provides participants with risk-adjusted outcomes reports as a foundation for quality improvement. The risk prediction models can be used at the time of medical decision-making to estimate an individual patient’s risk of various outcomes. Physicians can use this information to identify high-risk patients and tailor risk-mitigation strategies to the subset of patients most likely to benefit, thereby impacting both the quality and the costs of care.

Health Outcomes Sciences (HOS), a company in Kansas City Missouri, has developed the informatics capabilities to deploy multivariable prediction models at the point of care. The ACC has entered into a business relationship with HOS to translate the College’s risk models for use in routine clinical settings. For example, the first product offered is an individualized informed consent that enables calculation of a patient’s estimated risk for mortality, bleeding, and restenosis following PCI. The benefits of this personalized approach are substantial:

• Patients’ understanding, engagement and satisfaction are improved in studies using an individualized consent process.
• Physicians can objectively estimate the risks of bleeding, implement mitigation strategies prospectively, and estimate the specific benefits of using drug eluting stents.
• Hospitals achieve higher patient satisfaction scores and realize cost savings by this patient-tailored use of expensive therapies such as bivalirudin.

The many benefits accruing to patients, physicians, and hospitals through the adoption and use of these models promise to transform CV care and improve heart health. The ACC will continue to develop clinical prediction models from its NCDR data and disseminate their use through HOS. In return, the ACC will receive royalty payments from HOS. This concept of licensing intellectual property to commercial entities is congruent with the mandates of NIH investigators, as codified by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, to commercialize important discoveries that can improve care. Royalty payments will be used to support the NCDR and other ACC activities that advance the College’s mission. The ACC is proud of this opportunity to disseminate its models through HOS in order to improve cardiovascular care.