Thomas Maddox, MD, MSc, FACC, closed out ACC Quality Summit 2022 with a presentation on Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) and Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), exploring how these up-and-coming data elements can help make the information NCDR captures more actionable and complete. 

Maddox defined PROs as “standardized assessments of a person’s health status that provide a global perspective of patient well-being,” and pointed out five NCDR registries that include PROs in their datasets: CathPCI Registry, AFib Ablation Registry, EP Device Implant Registry, IMPACT Registry, and STS/ACC TVT Registry.

He emphasized that PRO collection is becoming more digital, where applications like remote patient monitoring and smartphone interactions can provide clinicians with valuable information to cultivate more effective care plans.

Maddox also recognized that the cardiovascular community is starting to “wake up” to the fact that SDOH are a necessary factor in assessing cardiovascular risk.

“We all know that social determinants of health drive outcomes more than direct medical care,” said Maddox. “We’re realizing that zip code matters more than your genetic code.”

Moving forward, he suggested that the way to incorporate SDOH into the NCDR may not be through collecting this data outright, instead proposing how already available datasets that capture SDOH could be pulled into the NCDR family of registries. Regardless of how PROs and SDOH are included, Maddox acknowledged these data points will play a key role in the future of quality improvement.

Clinical Topics: Arrhythmias and Clinical EP, Cardiovascular Care Team, Atrial Fibrillation/Supraventricular Arrhythmias

Keywords: Genetic Code, Monitoring, Physiologic, Heart Disease Risk Factors, Patient Reported Outcome Measures, Registries, Risk Factors, Smartphone, Atrial Fibrillation, Social Determinants of Health, Cardiovascular Diseases, Quality Improvement, Quality Summit, National Cardiovascular Data Registries

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