This post was authored by John D. Carroll, MD, FACC, member of The STS/ACC TVT Registry Steering Committee.

“Biomedical innovation represents the best and enables the worst of our health care system,” began Alan Weil, editor-in-chief of Health Affairs, at the opening of the publication’s briefing on a recent issue, which featured panel discussions with featured authors. A majority of the authors’ findings were overwhelmingly positive for the future of medicine, including one study which showed the evolution of biotechnology and its impact on health care over the past 35 years. Ronald A. Evens, MD, author of the study, remarked “biotech molecules have dramatically altered heath care for many unmet medical needs across all medical disciplines.”

During the panel on medical devices, I presented the recently published Health Affairs paper, “Transcatheter Valve Therapy Registry Is A Model For Medical Device Innovation And Surveillance,” showing that advances in biotechnology go beyond the molecules to include the actual systems that track and record who receives biotech devices and how they respond to them. In the paper, we took a close look at the STS/ACC TVT Registry, which is a model of collaboration among professional societies, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hospitals, patients, and the medical device industry.

During my presentation, I emphasized that as the number of serious heart valve diseases continue to grow, the need to rapidly learn about new treatments only intensifies. The TVT Registry allows clinicians to follow the long-term outcome of patients, which produces an individualized risk-benefit model for future patients in need of transcatheter valve replacements (TAVR) or other repair for valve diseases.

However, measurement alone is not enough. The huge data set that the TVT Registry represents must be translated into actions including being able to select patients likely to have significant improvement in their quality of life after TAVR. Deriving information from the registry data will also lead to improvements in the process of federal approval of medical devices, giving patients access to life-saving technology they need.

The TVT Registry serves as a model of innovation for future registries and the future of patient-centered care.

Read the more about this publication in Health Affairs on ACC.org. For more information on The STS/ACC TVT Registry, check out NCDR.com/TVT.

Watch the Health Affairs Briefing and download slides for each of the presenters here.

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