An article published on Jan. 15 in Heart highlights the ways the NCDR's CathPCI Registry^® has expanded beyond its primary purpose of characterizing the quality of care provided to patients undergoing angiography and PCI to serve as a platform for quality improvement.

According to the article, not only are states and payers employing the CathPCI Registry as part of broad quality programs, investigators are using data from the registry for cutting-edge health services research. In addition, the roles of the registry are expanding even further, "extending to postmarket device surveillance, education, multicentred interventional research and international collaborations."

Between late 1998 and mid-2012, the CathPCI Registry grew from a handful centers to 1,577 centers in the U.S. plus international sites. The registry has collected data on more than 8.175 million cardiac catheterizations and 4.596 million PCI procedures from institutions representing community and academic centers of varying sizes and geographic locations. Specifically, about two-thirds of institutions submit data on diagnostic catheterization as well as PCI, and one-third report PCI only. While the NCDR does not require submission of diagnostic catheterizations, institutions that accept the additional reporting burden are able to use reports to better evaluate care and outcomes in their diagnostic and interventional populations. The registry is designed to include 100 percent of consecutive adult patients who undergo PCI at participating institutions. 

Today, the current CathPCI database, v4.4, contains 252 data elements. Participants report patient demographics, medical history, risk factors, hospital presentation, initial cardiac status, procedural details, medications, laboratory values and in-hospital outcomes. Institutions can manually report using a free web-based tool or automate the reporting by using certified software developed by third-party vendors. Regardless of the data reporting system used, participants receive comprehensive feedback quarterly and annually on patient variables and outcomes. These reports allow institutions to track their own clinical progress and outcomes as well as benchmark internal results against the entire registry and other participants.

Participants also can access a dashboard of interactive reports for comparisons of their own metrics against other participant groups stratified by multiple factors, including teaching status, PCI volume, hospital location and bed size. These comparisons are invaluable for tracking local quality improvement programs and analysis of individual cases. In some cases, CathPCI participation satisfies governmental regulatory requirements or payer conditions of participation.

The registry has also emerged as a key research tool for the analysis of clinical treatments, procedures and outcomes. More than 450 research proposals have been submitted for scientific review and approval. These proposals have resulted in 179 abstracts presented at national scientific meetings and 100 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals.

Keywords: Quality Improvement, Registries, Research Design, Hospital Bed Capacity, Research Personnel, Cardiac Catheterization, Catheterization, Health Services Research, Risk Factors