CathPCI v5 & NCDR.18 – heartbase is Prepared

It is currently a blustery 27 degrees in heartbase’s home in Chicago, and our developers are hard at work, feverishly fine-tuning our software and preparing for certification of NCDR CathPCI v5. The new version is the largest in the history of the registry, and in many ways represents a paradigm shift in the way the ACC-NCDR records and collects data. We are excited to announce that we are well ahead of the curve in terms of development, and we will be certifying during the first week of February.

We understand that our customers cannot afford to have any blips or dead periods once the new version goes live, so we have been working for months preparing our platform for the earliest possible certification date. During this process, we have also made considerable changes to the platform as a whole in order to make the heartbase experience even more user friendly. Early certification gives us ample time to provide heartbase users with a series of webinars to get them better acquainted with the newly designed forms and features, prior to the April 1st Go-Live.

We are also excited to attend the annual NCDR conference in Orlando, March 7th-9th at the Caribe Royale. With the upcoming CathPCI Go-Live – as well as November’s ACTION update – this year’s conference should be particularly interesting, and we look forward to taking part in the discussions to learn more about the future plans of each of the ACC-NCDR registries. If you’re attending, please stop by our booth for a quick demonstration of our new v5 forms, or just to say hello to Alex, Carmen, Michael, and Stephen!

Like I said, it’s cold here – we can’t wait to see everyone in (hopefully) sunny Orlando!

Last week, we had the privilege to attend the 15th annual OTCDMG (Ohio Thoracic and Cardiovascular Data Managers Group) Conference in Lima, Ohio. The conference was attended by data managers from all over the Midwest, and featured a jam-packed lineup of speakers who addressed myriad facets of the ever-changing landscape of registry data collection. Heartbase President Nicholas Gawrit had the honor of speaking about interoperability, structured reporting, and Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE), of which he is the co-chair of the Technical Committee for the Cardiology Domain.

Special thanks to Vicki Reindel, Teresa Knueve, and the wonderful team at St. Rita’s Medical Center, who hosted the conference and helped make it such a great success. Events like these are invaluable for both the information provided by speakers and the conversations we were able to have with the attendees. While we love attending events like the STS AQO and NCDR national conferences, the intimacy of the OTCDMG conference gave us the opportunity to have in-depth discussions with data managers, who provided us with considerable insight and perspective that we will use to improve and expand the scope of our platform. Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit our booth. We look forward to seeing all of you next year!

heartbase is eagerly anticipating next week’s STS Advances in Quality Outcomes Data Manager’s meeting in our hometown of Chicago, Illinois. The AQO, which will take place at the historic Palmer House from October 18-20, focuses on all three STS databases – Adult Cardiac, General Thoracic, and Congenital – and provides attendees with a variety of presentations and discussions that will help them improve patient care and data collection.

The event attracts data and quality managers, RNs, cardiologists and other medical professionals from all around the country, and we’re extraordinarily excited to see so many of our users over the course of the week!

If you are not currently a heartbase user, we will be demoing our state-of-the-art database and analytics platform over the course of the conference. In consideration of the recent natural disasters of the past weeks, we will donate 10 dollars to either the American Red Cross or the ASPCA for each demo scheduled with heartbase at the STS AQO. Demo Attendees will also receive a Starbucks gift card as a show of our appreciation. Please click here to schedule your demo!

We can’t wait to see everyone at the show!

Chicago – July 7, 2017

Heartbase, Inc. is pleased to announce that we have completed the Risk Algorithm certification and are now fully Society of Thoracic Surgeons Adult Cardiac Registry version 2.9 certified! The massive 1426-field Adult Cardiac v2.9 – which includes 586 new fields – is the largest registry to date, and the robust new Risk Algorithm has tripled in size from its 2.81 predecessor. As one of the first vendors to be certified, we are thrilled that the new forms have already been deployed to the majority of our clients, and we will work diligently to provide our users with the service and support they need as they begin this enormous new undertaking. Additionally, we will continue to offer educational opportunities to facilitate a smooth transition to v2.9.

Heartbase trainer Carmen Ernst will present our new STS Adult Cardiac v2.9 web forms in a webinar on Tuesday July 11, 1-2pm CDT. The class will be restricted to current heartbase customers. Click here to join.

Please contact support@heartbase.net to learn more about heartbase’s new STS Adult Cardiac v2.9 forms.

We are excited to announce that Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) has published the Cardiac Procedure Note (CPN), and it is open for public comment until June 25, 2017. Your insight is invaluable to the refinement of this project, which will considerably strengthen patient care and leverage reimbursement through structured reporting.

What is the Cardiac Procedure Note?
Through his role as co-chair of the Cardiology Domain Technical Committee of the IHE, heartbase President Nicholas Gawrit has co-authored the Cardiac Procedure Note, which sets the standard for interoperability between cardiovascular service lines, streamlines data collection to help hospitals meet registry goals, and maximizes compliance to MACRA and MIPS for unmatched reimbursement.

Who does the Cardiac Procedure Note Affect?
The CPN was written with cardiology units in mind, and will greatly help cardiologists across all subspecialties. While the CPN is highly technical in nature and may not be directly applicable to you as a clinician and caregiver, it has far-reaching implications within health care facilities as a whole. We ask that you forward this information to the following stakeholders within your health system: Chairs of Cardiology, Directors of Cardiovascular Services, Electrophysiologists, and all physicians who are both clinically and technically inclined.

How was the CPN Created?
The Report Content for the CPN is defined based on the following:
• ACC/AHA/SCAI 2014 Health Policy Statement on Structured Reporting for the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory
• 2016 ACC/ASE/ASNC/HRS/SCAI Health Policy Statement on Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise
• ACC-NCDR ICD dataset and the ACC NCDR ICD version 1.2 and leveraging clinical data standards like ICD9/10, SNOMED, LOINC and IEEE 11073-10103 nomenclature.
• ACC-NCDR Cath/PCI dataset and the ACC NCDR Cath/PCI version 4.4, leveraging clinical data standards like ICD9/10, SNOMED and LOINC.
• STS/ACC TVT Registry dataset version 2.0

We Need Your Insight
Heartbase and the IHE are committed to improving the healthcare industry by increasing interoperability to reduce redundancy and allow cardiologists to freely exchange reports and clinical procedure data. Your feedback is extremely important to us.

Click here to read the Cardiac Procedure Note.

Click here to comment on the Cardiac Procedure Note (Open until June 25, 2017)

Heartbase, Inc., the premier database in healthcare, has partnered with Kansas City, Missouri-based Health Outcomes Sciences, Inc. (HOS), a provider of groundbreaking predictive analytics. HOS has an exclusive contract with the ACC-NCDR for a number of risk stratification modules, including real-time risk adjustments for PCI In-Hospital Mortality, PCI Bleeding, Acute Kidney Injury, and PCI 30-Day Readmission. These models can be implemented for both predictive and retrospective scoring, and can be embedded directly into existing heartbase™ reports and dashboards. Paired with heartbase’s groundbreaking registry submission and reporting software, HOS’s risk models will greatly strengthen the reporting and research capabilities of heartbase™ healthcare clients to quickly identify risk factors and improve clinical care.

“As the hospital industry continues to shift to a pay-for-performance model, predictive analytics are becoming increasingly vital for healthcare providers,” said Stephen Gawrit, Director of Sales and Operations at heartbase, Inc. “Health Outcomes Sciences provides the most influential predictive models in the industry, and their level of expertise and innovation is unparalleled. Heartbase is excited to work with HOS to provide our customers with the most powerful reporting tools in healthcare.”

“We are really excited to team up with heartbase and are looking forward to helping improve outcomes through the use of predictive analytics. The combination of heartbase and the ePRISM(r) platform from HOS will provide a solid foundation for hospitals and health systems to excel in this era of value-based care,” said Ryan Fox, Vice President of Sales and Marketing with Heath Outcomes Sciences Inc.

About Health Outcomes Sciences

Health Outcomes Sciences is driving the practice of precision medicine through its patented content enablement platform, ePRISM®, which translates scientific models into automated evidence-based decision support solutions. By helping health and life science organizations — as well as allied technology partners — deliver the power of personalized predictive science at the point of care, the company facilitates significant and measurable improvements in clinical and financial outcomes, variations in care, appropriate use and rational consumption of resources. The company’s solutions are specialty agnostic, scalable at the enterprise level and employ a cloud-hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model.

About heartbase, Inc.

Since 1992, heartbase™ has provided health care centers with the most technologically innovative and clinically intuitive data management and analytic solution in the industry. Working collegially with its immense network of users, heartbase™ has created a vast library of reporting tools that provides its client with complete control of its hospital-owned clinical data. Heartbase’s revolutionary hbCOR platform propels clinical performance, aligns clinical data with registry requirements, and unites health care systems from across our network to the most comprehensive reporting repository in the industry.

Heartbase offices will be closed on Monday, March 29th in observance of Memorial Day. As we enjoy the company of our friends and family this weekend, we also pay the most sincere respect to the fallen heroes of wars of the past and present.

To veterans everywhere: heartbase thanks you for your service to this great nation.

heartbase is thrilled to be attending the Heart Rhythm Society Scientific Sessions, right here in our own backyard of Chicago! We will be presenting our innovative dictationless Electrophysiology Note. Capturing data from hospital systems and devices, heartbase has created a revolutionary, dictationless electronic note that fully integrates clinical data from the cardiac EP ICD procedure. Please let us know if you’re going to be attending this enormous event. We would love for you to stop by Booth 1627 (near the enormous Medtronic display) to give you a personal demonstration of our EP Noting solution. If you or anyone from your healthcare network is attending the conference and would like to learn more, contact Alex Potanos.

May 6-May 12, we celebrate National Nurses Week 2017.  It’s fitting that this week of celebration begins on a Saturday instead of a Monday, because nurses don’t work the standard 9-5 schedule. Nurses work nights, weekends, and holidays. They provide us with the care we need, when we need it.  They’re our caregivers, our teachers, our counselors, and our friends.

heartbase would like to take this opportunity to thank nurses everywhere for all of the amazing things you do. More specifically, we would like to thank the nurses who have helped make heartbase the company it is. We have always taken a collegial approach to improving our product, and we truly do depend on your advice and feedback to continually improve our hbCOR platform. We’re lucky to be able to collaborate with you all!

We’d also like to send extra-special thanks to heartbase’s resident nurse and clinical trainer, Carmen Ernst, RN, BSN, whose work ethic, curiosity, and astounding attention to detail has been a key component to our success. Thank you for everything, Carmen!

It may be National Nurses Week, but there is not a day that goes by that we don’t salute the extraordinary work of nurses.  Thank you for everything you do!

On April 5^th, the ACC-NCDR released the following statement:

“Effective April 1, 2017, the NCDR’s ACTION Registry®-GWTG™ will transition to a new operating model to allow for greater data security, collaboration and flexibility around quality improvement efforts – efforts that are increasingly more important in today’s outcomes-focused health care environment.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) actively worked with the American Heart Association (AHA) to ensure the transition to this new model is as seamless as possible. Both the Registry and affiliated programs like Mission: Lifeline will continue to operate as usual. Hospitals currently participating in the Registry will not need to do anything differently and will receive an email notice that Program Requirements have been updated. Hospitals will notice changes to the name and branding that reference ACTION Registry® instead of ACTION Registry®-GWTG™.

If your hospital wishes to cancel participation in this Registry for 2017 due to the change described above, or if you have additional questions regarding this change, please contact NCDR@acc.org. Mission: Lifeline participants should contact AHA for additional program details regarding Mission: Lifeline.”

As of April 1^st, 2017 the ACC-NCDR is ending its longstanding partnership with the AHA for the ACTION Registry-GWTG (ARG). In order to continue to provide Mission: Lifeline reporting, the AHA has relaunched the GWTG-CAD tool, which will replace ARG moving forward. We at heartbase are acutely aware of these developments, and are currently in discussions with the Mission: Lifeline staff for clarification; as soon as we hear anything back, we will relay the information to you.

Additionally, Quintiles and AHA are developing a hospital upload tool to provide a similar submission process to that of the NCDR, which will allow third-party vendors such as heartbase to perform submissions.  Once we receive a current data dictionary and data uploader specification, heartbase can begin to develop the GWTG-CAD data collection forms. We are anticipating a release of the heartbase tool by the end of June 2017.

What we know, and how it may affect you (UPDATED 4/28): 

• According to Art Miller, Director of Mission: Lifeline, participation in GWTG-CAD in 2017 will be free. Cost information for 2018 will be announced in June 2017.
• A crosswalk and CSV Upload Tool will be available to GWTG-CAD participants in June 2017.
• AHA-GWTG and ACC-NCDR are partners in Cardiac Accreditation, but will continue to operate separately.  However, relevant clinical registry programs of both groups will support the data requirements for hospitals participating in any ACC/AHA Accreditation offerings.
• According to a press release from Mission: Lifeline: “GWTG-CAD currently captures many data elements and some measures required for Chest Pain Accreditation and intends to fully support the 23 required measures by Winter 2017.”
• Click here to read the release from the AHA
• Click here to review the CAD data collection tool

Rest assured, heartbase is prepared to address these changes.  We will provide you with any new information as it comes to us.