The ACC and American Heart Association (AHA) on March 23 released the 2020 AHA/ACC Key Data Elements and Definitions for Coronary Revascularization in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The document outlines consensus-based key data elements and definitions for databases capturing information about coronary revascularization.

Led by Writing Committee Chair Gregory J. Dehmer, MD, MACC, the new document is intended to serve as a common lexicon for work related to standardization and health care interoperability, including but not limited to structural, administrative and technical metadata development. Specifically, the new data elements and definitions focus on: 1) defining what to collect; 2) deciding how to represent what is collected; and 3) determining how to encode the data for transmission.

It is anticipated that the clinical data standards will be used for purposes such as procedure reports; electronic health record systems; clinical studies; registries; health IT interoperability efforts; public reporting programs; and medical education programs.

"Development of comprehensive clinical data standards and use of standardized vocabularies are key to health care data interoperability and ultimately will help improve effective communication of patient care across all areas of practice in the health care continuum," Dehmer writes.

Keywords: Vocabulary, Electronic Health Records, Registries, Patient Care

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