On January 13, 2009 heartbase received certification for version 1.09 NCDR-CARE Registry from the American College of Cardiology joining its certification with the ACC NCDR-CATH/PCI, NCDR-ICD and pending NCDR-ACTION registries. Fulfilling CMS data collection requirements for carotid implantations and targeted for patients receiving carotid artery stents and undergoing endarterectomy procedures, the CARE registry captures key fields to benchmark patient outcomes, volumes, device and lesion characteristics, utilization and clinical practice. The heartbase CARE Registry module is fully HIPAA compliant, fulfills CMS data collection requirements registry requirements and may be purchased as a standalone module or integrated into an existing heartbase system. Benefits multiply with integration, as system features are similar across all module service lines, the user builds upon system knowledge and a full patient clinical view is available. In addition to ease of data entry, compliance, broad interface capability to capture data from diverse sources and robust reporting, the unique relational database fully integrates all CARE related patient, service-line and clinical data with data generated in additional certified modules with the American College of Cardiology, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, CMS-Core Measures, and several state and regionally based registry modules. For the safe and efficient management of patient care, adherence to governmental guidelines, the desire to statistically back "Best Practice" claims and cost management, timely and accurate data is crucial. Generating reliable evidence-based data, heartbase offers a full spectrum of reporting, for drilling down point of care issues on the spot to running comparative benchmark analyses at the practice and network levels. Committed to client success, heartbase offers superior person to person customer service, training and technical support. heartbase enables facilities to address critical quality of care and performance improvement issues. Please contact the heartbase Sales Department for more information and to schedule a demo of the new CARE Registry. 773-267-7400

• HealthGrades "Distinguished Hospitals for Clinical Excellence"
• The Joint Commission Gold Seal
• The Thompson 100 Top Hospitals Cardiovascular Benchmarks for Success
• The Blue Cross Blue Shield "Distinction Center for Cardiac Care"
• US News and World Report - America's Best Hospitals
• Healthcare Accreditation Colloquium's Heart Failure Institute
• Forbes America's Safest Hospitals

The Cardiovascular Medicine Work Group consists of a variety of healthcare professionals and stakeholders and will review the Federal government's activities as defined by ARRA legislation and further develop certification criteria for Cardiovascular Medicine to specifically "recommend optional criteria and test scripts to other certification categories to address the unique needs of office-based cardiovascular physicians and practices with a goal of improving health IT adoption in that specialty medicine group." Nick's experience and expertise in cardiovascular information systems development and deployment, data analysis and system integration will lend valuable input into the CCHIT initiative.  www.cchit.org

It's easy to convert and own your data!   ACC CathPCI participants using the CathPCI online data collection tool who wish to convert to heartbase have been given an easy to use process. 

Beginning this week, online participants will see an additional link on the left navigation of the "Data" page, "Data Migration (v4.0)".  This link will allow hospitals to migrate their data entered into the online data collection tool into a file that can easily be imported into heartbase.  When hospitals click on the link, there are directions that tell users how to create the migration file. Once you have created this file, it is simple to import it into heartbase.

Please note that you should migrate data at the beginning or the end of a quarter. You can only use one source to submit your data to the CathPCI Registry, either heartbase or the CathPCI Registry online data collection tool. This process will give you a clean break from the online data collection software. 

In June 2009, Nick Gawrit was selected to serve on the Cardiovascular Medicine Work Group sponsored by the Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT®) for the development of the new 2009 EHR certification criteria specific to cardiovascular clinical information.    

In addition, in June, 2009 he became a member of the Integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) International Organization, serving on the Cardiology Planning and Technical committee and the IT Infrastructure Planning and Technical committee.  

In October 2009, Nick was asked to serve as the liaison between these two committees in an effort to further collaborate within IHE.  The role of the IHE is to develop a framework for adoption of exchange of information among healthcare systems and specifying a level of compliance to standards sufficient to achieve efficient interoperability.  Specifically Nick is involved with developing cardiovascular profiles and related technical specifications. 

These activities enable heartbase to remain in the forefront of technological advancements, participate in setting standards for clinical outcome analysis and have input in the ONCs Meaningful Use discussion.  This information is passed on to the client base and incorporated, where appropriate, into the software.

Press Release

Chicago - December 9, 2009

Contact:  Mary Hickey, Sales and Marketing Director

heartbase is pleased to announce that on December 8, 2009 heartbase successfully completed the Joint Commission verification for VTE and on December 9, successfully completed verification for Stroke.  heartbase is verified for the following Core Measure data sets:

 Acute Myocardial Infarction(AMI) Core Measure Set

 Children's Asthma Care(CAC) Core Measure Set

 Heart Failure(HF) Core Measure Set

 Hospital Outpatient Department Quality Measures-Core Measure Set

 Pneumonia(PN) Standard Core Measure Set

 Pregnancy(PR) - Core Measure Set

Replaced by Perinatal Care Core Measure Set - 2009

 Stroke(STK) Core Measure Set

 Surgical Care Improvement Program(SCIP/SIP) Core Measure Set

Infection Module - INF

Cardiac Module - Card

Venous Thromboembolism - VTE

 Venous Thromboembolism(VTE) - Core Measure Set

Please call Sara Swastek for a Core Measure Webex demonstration to learn more about how the integrated heartbase database simplifies Core Measure data collection, sampling, submission and reporting capability.  

VENOUS THROMBOEMBOLISM

From the Joint Commission website: http://www.jointcommission.org/PerformanceMeasurement/PerformanceMeasurement/VTE.htm

The venous thromboembolism (VTE) measures were developed as a result of the ‘National Consensus Standards for the Prevention and Care of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)' project between The Joint Commission and the National Quality Forum (NQF) that formally began in January 2005.  The development process was guided by the expertise and advice provided by the NQF steering committee (SC) and the technical advisory panel (TAP). The measures were tested through a multi-phased approach and the results were reviewed by the SC and TAP   Six VTE measures were endorsed by the NQF in May, 2008 and aligned with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The VTE measure was approved as a core measure set for use in the Joint Commission's ORYX program and is available for selection by hospitals to meet their 4 core measure set accreditation requirement effective May 1, 2009.

The VTE Core Measure data set includes: Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Measures

VTE-1: Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis

Numerator: Patients who received VTE prophylaxis or have documentation why no VTE prophylaxis was given:

● The day of or the day after hospital admission

● The day of or the day after surgery end date for surgeries that start the day of or the day after hospital admission.

Denominator: All patients

VTE-2: Intensive Care Unit Venous Thromboembolism

Prophylaxis

Numerator: Patients who received VTE prophylaxis or have documentation why no VTE prophylaxis was given:

● The day of or the day after ICU admission (or transfer)

● The day of or the day after surgery end date for surgeries that start the day of or the day after ICU admission (or transfer).

Denominator: Patients directly admitted or transferred to ICU

VTE-3: Venous Thromboembolism Patients with

Anticoagulation Overlap Therapy

Numerator: Patients who received overlap therapy

Denominator: Patients with confirmed VTE who received warfarin

VTE-4: Venous Thromboembolism Patients Receiving

Unfractionated Heparin with Dosages/Platelet

Count Monitoring by Protocol or Nomogram

Numerator: Patients who have their IV UFH therapy dosages AND platelet counts monitored according to defined parameters such as a nomogram or protocol

Denominator: Patients with confirmed VTE receiving IV UFH therapy

VTE-5: Venous Thromboembolism Discharge

Instructions

Numerator: Patients with documentation that they or their caregivers were given written discharge instructions or other educational material about warfarin addressing all of the following:

1. Compliance issues

2. Dietary advice

3. Follow-up monitoring

4. Potential for adverse drug reactions and interactions

Denominator: Patients with confirmed VTE discharged on warfarin therapy

VTE-6: Incidence of Potentially-Preventable Venous

Thromboembolism

Numerator: Patients who received no VTE prophylaxis prior to the VTE diagnostic test order date

Denominator: Patients who developed confirmed VTE during hospitalization

STROKE

From the Joint Commission website:

http://www.jointcommission.org/PerformanceMeasurement/PerformanceMeasurement/STK+Core+Measures.htm

The stroke (STK) measures were developed in collaboration with the American Heart Association (AHA)/American Stroke Association (ASA)/Brain Attack Coalition (BAC) for use by Disease-Specific Care (DSC)-certified primary stroke centers.  The development process was guided by the expertise and advice provided by the Disease-Specific Care Stroke Advisory Panel  followed by harmonization of the measure specifications with data elements contained in the AHA Get With The GuidelinesSM (GWTG)-Stroke patient management tool and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Paul Coverdell National Acute Stroke Registry (PCNASR).  Eight of the ten measures in the stroke set were endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) in July, 2008 and aligned with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The eight NQF-endorsed measures were approved as a core measure set for use in the Joint Commission's ORYX program, and are available for selection by hospitals to meet their 4 core measure set accreditation requirement effective May 1, 2009.

The Stroke Core Measure data set includes:

 STK-1: Venous Thromboembolism (VTE) Prophylaxis

Numerator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients who received VTE prophylaxis or have documentation why no VTE prophylaxis was given on the day of or the day after hospital admission

Denominator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients

STK-2: Discharged on Antithrombotic Therapy

Numerator: Ischemic stroke patients prescribed antithrombotic therapy at hospital discharge

Denominator: Ischemic stroke patients

STK-3: Anticoagulation Therapy for Atrial

Fibrillation/Flutter

Numerator: Ischemic stroke patients prescribed anticoagulation therapy at hospital discharge

Denominator: Ischemic stroke patients with documented atrial fibrillation/flutter

STK-4: Thrombolytic Therapy

Numerator: Acute ischemic stroke patients for whom IV thrombolytic therapy was initiated at this hospital within 3 hours (< 180 minutes) of time last known well

Denominator: Acute ischemic stroke patients whose time

of arrival is within 2 hours (< 120 minutes) of time last known well

STK-5: Antithrombotic Therapy by End of Hospital Day 2

Numerator: Ischemic stroke patients who had antithrombotic therapy administered by end of hospital day 2

Denominator: Ischemic stroke patients

STK-6: Discharged on Statin Medication

Numerator: Ischemic stroke patients prescribed statin medication at hospital discharge

Denominator: Ischemic stroke patients with an LDL > 100

mg/dL, OR LDL not measured, OR who were on a

lipid-lowering medication prior to hospital arrival

STK-8: Stroke Education

Numerator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients with documentation that they or their caregivers were given educational material addressing all of the following:

1. Activation of emergency medical system

2. Need for follow-up after discharge

3. Medications prescribed at discharge

4. Risk factors for stroke

5. Warning signs for stroke

Denominator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients

discharged home

STK-10: Assessed for Rehabilitation

Numerator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients assessed for or who received rehabilitation services

Denominator: Ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke patients

The measures are included in the April 2009 The Joint Commission Perspectives ^® document which is located on the Joint Commission website:  http://www.jointcommission.org/NR/rdonlyres/AD24B9CB-57F6-4BDC-86DD-5DA0576AC15E/0/S4JCP0409.pdf. 

Chicago - April 20, 2010
Contact: Mary Hickey, Sales and Marketing Manager

On April 20, 2010 heartbase, Inc. received certification from The American College of Cardiology for the upgraded version of the ACC-NCDR® ICD Registry. The ACC-NCDR® ICD v.2.0 module joins the NCDR® CathPCI, and NCDR® CARE certified registries.

The NCDR® ICD website states the ICD Registry expanded its capabilities to:
• Capture atrial, ventricular, defibrillator, and left-heart lead data at time of implant, revision, replacement, or surgical abandonment
• Monitor and report pediatric ICD implantation data to expand the knowledge base for an important patient population with unique needs at implantation
• ICD/CRT-D generators for primary and secondary prevention
• Update key quality indicators and align its data set more closely with current guidelines

Fully integrating all clinical data, heartbase^TM provides full access to hospital-owned data and promotes proactive use of all patient data by enabling qualitative measurement regarding procedures and outcomes from The American College of Cardiology, The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and The Joint Commission-Core Measures. Registry participation aids in identifying areas of excellence as well as opportunities for improvement, and also allows your facility to apply emerging best practices and position itself as a quality leader.

Exceeding registry compliance, required registry data may be augmented with customized fields and data input may be streamlined with customized screens which mirror workflow. Comprehensive reporting and query tools are enhanced by button activated validation features, which are identical in all heartbase^TM ACC, STS, TJC-CMS modules, interactive audit tools, pass/fail reports and DataView which identifies missing or invalid information and routes directly to patient folder for correction. Not having to wait for registry reports, heartbase reports are run at users' discretion and yield information to reduce procedural complications, support quality improvement initiatives and satisfy the data collection and reporting requirements of regulatory and contracting organizations. Data collection may be further optimized with the addition of a host of interfaces and utilizing heartbase^TM technical expertise in customizing protocols for maximum data exchange.

Installed nationwide, heartbase^TM is committed to generating reliable evidence-based data essential for improving outcomes, generating revenue and controlling costs. Please call today for a heartbase presentation and see firsthand how to be proactive with your clinical data!

Press Release

heartbase certified in ACC-NCDR ACTION Registry

Chicago - May 21, 2010

Contact: Mary Hickey, Sales and Marketing Manager

On May 21, 2010 heartbase, Inc. received certification from The American College of Cardiology for the ACC-NCDR^® ACTION Registry-GWTG joining certification with the NCDR^® CathPCI, NCDR^® ICD and NCDR^® CARE registries. 

From the ACC NCDR website: "Created by the merger of the NCDR^® ACTION Registry from the American College of Cardiology Foundation^® and the Get With The Guidelines^SM-CAD program from the American Heart Association, ACTION Registry^®-GWTG^TM combines the best of both programs into a single, unified national registry...With the collective strengths of these two programs, ACTION Registry-GWTG empowers health care provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines."

ACTION Registry-GWTG is a quality improvement tool that helps hospitals apply national guidelines for treating STEMI or NSTEMI patients.  It features:

• Risk-adjusted benchmark reports that help improve adherence to ACC/AHA Clinical Guideline recommendations and explores the association between evidence-based treatment strategies and clinical outcomes. Key measures reports and risk-adjusted quarterly benchmark reports that compare an institution's performance with that of volume-based peer groups and the national experience
• Clinically derived decision-support information to guide real-time, real-life patient care management.
• Evidence-based data elements that facilitate data collection for use in JCAHO core measures reporting requirements.

Fully integrating all clinical data, heartbase^TM provides full access to hospital-owned data and promotes proactive use of all patient data by enabling qualitative measurement regarding procedures and outcomes from The American College of Cardiology, The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and The Joint Commission-Core Measures.  Registry participation aids in identifying areas of excellence as well as opportunities for improvement, and also allows your facility to apply emerging best practices and position itself as a quality leader.

Exceeding registry compliance, required registry data may be augmented with customized fields and data input may be streamlined with customized screens which mirror workflow.  Comprehensive reporting and query tools are enhanced by button activated validation features, which are identical in all heartbase^TM ACC, STS, TJC-CMS modules, interactive audit tools, pass/fail reports and DataView which identifies missing or invalid information and routes directly to patient folder for correction.  Not having to wait for registry reports, heartbase reports are run at users' discretion and yield information to reduce procedural complications, support quality improvement initiatives and satisfy the data collection and reporting requirements of regulatory and contracting organizations.  Data collection may be further optimized with the addition of a host of interfaces and utilizing heartbase^TM technical expertise in customizing protocols for maximum data exchange.

Installed nationwide, heartbase^TM is committed to generating reliable evidence-based data essential for improving outcomes, generating revenue and controlling costs.  Please call today for a heartbase presentation and see firsthand how to be proactive with your clinical data!  773-267-7400

Press Release

Chicago - June 1, 2010

Contact:  Mary Hickey, Sales and Marketing Director

On June 1, 2010,  heartbase, Inc. successfully completed the Joint Commission verification for the Perinatal Care Core Measure Set (PC).  heartbase, Inc. is presently verified in nine core measure sets. 

The broad objectives of The Joint Commission (http://www.jointcommission.org/) are the continuing expansion and coordination of nationally standardized core measurement capabilities and increasing the use of measure data for quality improvement, benchmarking, accountability, decision-making, accreditation and research.  As of March 31, 2010, the Pregnancy and Related Conditions Core Measure Set was retired and replaced with the new Perinatal Care (PC) Core Measure set.  Perinatal Care (PC) comprises the following measures:

• Elective delivery
• Cesarean  section
• Antenatal steroids
• Healthcare-associated bloodstream infections in newborns
• Exclusive breast milk feeding

heartbase, Inc.  is verified for the following Core Measure data sets:

• Acute Myocardial Infarction(AMI) Core Measure Set
• Children's Asthma Care(CAC) Core Measure Set
• Heart Failure(HF) Core Measure Set
• Hospital Outpatient (OP) Department Quality Measures-Core Measure Set
• Pneumonia(PN) Standard Core Measure Set
• Perinatal Care (PC)  - Core Measure Set
• Stroke(STK) Core Measure Set
• Surgical Care Improvement Program(SCIP) Core Measure Set
• Infection Module - INF
• Cardiac Module - CARD
• Venous Thromboembolism - VTE

• Venous Thromboembolism(VTE) - Core Measure Set

Fully integrating all clinical data, heartbase^TM provides full access to hospital-owned data and promotes proactive use of all patient data by enabling qualitative measurement regarding procedures and outcomes from The American College of Cardiology, The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and The Joint Commission-Core Measures.  Registry participation aids in identifying areas of excellence as well as opportunities for improvement, and also allows facilities to apply emerging best practices and position itself as a quality leader.

Exceeding registry compliance, required registry data may be augmented with customized fields and data input may be streamlined with customized screens which mirror workflow.  Comprehensive reporting and query tools are enhanced by button activated validation features, which are identical in all heartbase^TM ACC, STS, TJC-CMS modules, interactive audit tools, pass/fail reports and DataView which identifies missing or invalid information and routes directly to patient folder for correction.  Not having to wait for registry reports, heartbase reports are run at users' discretion and yield information to reduce procedural complications, support quality improvement initiatives and satisfy the data collection and reporting requirements of regulatory and contracting organizations.  Data collection may be further optimized with the addition of a host of interfaces and utilizing heartbase^TM technical expertise in customizing protocols for maximum data exchange.

Installed nationwide, heartbase^TM is committed to generating reliable evidence-based data essential for improving outcomes, generating revenue and controlling costs.  Please call today for a heartbase demonstration to learn more about how the integrated heartbase database simplifies Core Measure data collection, sampling, submission and reporting capability. 

Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke puts the expertise of the American Stroke Association to work for hospital teams, helping to ensure that the care they provide to stroke patients is aligned with the latest scientific guidelines.

Most hospitals that implement the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke quality improvement program realize measurable results. It’s a difference that shows in the lives of patients and their families, in the satisfaction felt by caregivers empowered to do their best and in the financial health of participating hospitals.