hbCOR
hbCOR

Streamline CV data collection, interoperability, & reporting through a clinician-focus designed platform for multiple service lines in one independent, relational, patient-centric, procedure-oriented clinical repository including: Cardiology, Electrophysiology, CV Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Thoracic Surgery, Chest Pain, HF, Stroke, ECMO, Custom Research & more!

Key Features

Heartbase supports ALL versions of the STS, ACC-NCDR and GWTG CAD, HF, & Stroke registries, as well as numerous State registries. In 2021, heartbase became the first vendor to successfully support the ELSO registry. Additionally, heartbase has developed numerous custom registries for hospitals across the country. For more information, see our registry listing below.

The hbCOR platform provides various pre-harvest data validations that help users ensure data is 100% accurate before submission.

Unlike other vendors, hbCOR data validations happen in real-time, meaning that users receive immediate feedback when a data element may be considered unusual, inconsistent with other variables, or invalid by the registry.

Custom Validation checks are available upon request.

The heartbase platform offers an extensive library of hundreds of clinically meaningful reports, designed to be run by clinical users without the need for special programming knowledge or table joining.

Reports include Officially Licensed Risk Measures, AUC, Executive Measures & NQF Measure Reporting, MD Report Cards, Medication and Equipment Analysis, Complications, and more! Run reports by Network, Region, Hospital, Practice, & Physician, with full patient-level drill-down.

All hbCOR reports are developed through direct collaboration between heartbase and our users. When a user has an idea for a new report, heartbase will work with their facility to build that report free of charge and distribute it to our entire user community during the next report update.

The hbQuery Tool is designed to be easily used by clinical staff, giving them immediate access to all clinical data points in a patient population over any given specified period of time. Heartbase users can select their desired query variables directly from the registry form. The heartbase custom conditional logic tool allows users to filter the values in the hbCOR user interface, rather than manipulating the dataset in a spreadsheet program. Users can easily filter by any field within the registry, including calculated fields such as ProcID (Surgical Operative Category). All custom fields are innately queryable, regardless of what other outputs they are associated with.

Query outputs include options for the numeric values as well as the value labels, creating meaningful reports for clinical or statistical users.

The query program can be saved for future use. Saved queries are accessible directly from the heartbase tool and can be run anytime based on a new date range.

Clinical datasets have become increasingly complex, making it essential for your facility to streamline capture through data sharing and improved system interoperability. Heartbase is uniquely poised to take on the growing challenges of integration due to the distinctive nature of our data model. The heartbase data repository shares all fields with matching data definitions, across all applicable registries and historic versions.  With interfaces available from EHRs to hemodynamic monitoring equipment, reducing the burden of manual data collection is available at your fingertips.

As the co-chair of the IHE Cardiology Domain’s Technical Committee, heartbase President Nicholas Gawrit has co-authored several profiles to set standards for interoperability between cardiovascular service lines to streamline data collection,help hospitals meet registry goals, and maximize regulatory compliance.

Beyond our technological solutions, heartbase understands that successful interoperability relies on the human element. We provide the expertise and system flexibility to help your users develop a custom workflow that will ease the burden of data collection and allow them to spend more time analyzing data than entering it.

Registries

  • STS

    Adult Cardiac, Congenital, & General Thoracic

  • ACC-NCDR

    CathPCI, Chest Pain - MI, EP (ICD & Afib), IMPACT, & TVT

  • GWTG, CMS, TJC

    GWTG-CAD, HF, Stroke, IQR, OQR, Advanced HF & Stroke Measures

  • State & Custom

    CCORP, COAP, PHC4, NYS, NJ, IHA, ELSO ECMO, & Custom Registry Modules

  • hbCOR

    Integrated Data Across All Registries & Revisions

  • Afib Ablation Versions 1.08-present
  • CathPCI Versions 2.0b-present – Officially Licensed Risk Metrics & AUC
  • CP-MI (formerly ACTION) Versions 2.1-present
  • EP Device Implant (Formerly ICD) Versions 1.08-present
  • IMPACT Versions 2.0-present
  • STS/ACC TVT Registry Version 3.0 (first open to vendors) – present

Retired Registries

  • CARE (Retired) Version 1.09
  • PVI (Retired) Version 1.0 – Jan. 2021
  • Adult Cardiac Versions 2.35-present
  • Thoracic Versions 2.07-present
  • Congenital Versions 2.3-present

CMS IP

  • Sepsis

CMS OP

  • Outpatient ED
  • Outpatient STK
  • Outpatient MI

The Joint Commission

  • VTE
  • STK (Not CSTK, but Regular STK)
  • Global (ED, IMM, TOB, SUB)
  • HBIPS
  • PC
  • ACHF IP
  • ACHF OP
  • GWTG CAD Versions Nov. 2017-present
  • GWTG Heart Failure Versions Jan. 2013-present
  • GWTG Stroke Versions April. 2011-present

State Registries

  • California State
  • New Jersey State
  • New York State
  • Washington State
  • Pennsylvania State
  • Michigan State
  • Indiana State

Additional Registries

  • ELSO ECMO – First Vendor Certified for Submission
  • Custom Registry Development

Interoperability

Interface Functionality: heartbase differs from competitors in the following ways: the heartbase ADT captures all transactions/changes from the admitting system (regardless of registry), rather than having to request the patient from the CVIS. So, as the patient is changed on the Admitting side, that change is also reflected on the heartbase side. This includes Demographics, Admitting, and Discharge information.

Hospital System(s): All EHR vendors.

Registries Affected: All in-scope registries, from 15-36 elements per encounter.

Does this interface create events?: No, this interface only creates up to the encounter level.

Real-time: Yes. As changes are made in the patient record, an ADT message is transmitted to heartbase and immediately consumed.

Interface Functionality: EHRs have the ability to send Abstract Segment (ABS) in parallel with the ADT messages. This allows for real-time coding data to populate the heartbase encounter record.

Hospital System(s):

Registries Affected: Varies site-to-site.

Does this interface create events?: TBD, this interface could be leveraged to create CMS, GTSD, and CP-MI events.

Real-time: Yes. As changes are made in the patient record, an ABS message is transmitted to heartbase and immediately consumed. 

Interface Functionality: heartbase requires a batch coding extract for the hbRecon Toolkit & CMS modules.

Hospital System(s): All EHR vendors or coding/quality systems.

Registries Affected: Varies site-to-site.

Does this interface create events?: TBD, this interface could be leveraged to create CMS, GTSD, and CP-MI events.

Real-time: No, typically, a patient is final coded 1-2 weeks post-discharge. These files are typically generated on either a weekly or monthly basis.

Interface Functionality: For the usage of the hbAnalytics Financial Module, including push-button financial reports on associated heartbase data entry screens, the hospital must provide an extract of the required financial information. Heartbase has financial buckets available for the encounter, event, and equipment levels.

Hospital System(s): All EHR vendors or coding/quality systems.

Registries Affected: Varies site-to-site.

Does this interface create events?: No.

Real-time: No, these files are typically generated on either a monthly or quarterly basis.

Interface Functionality: Once a case is closed in the clinical system, the data is automatically routed to a service, which in turn updates the heartbase repository with corresponding discrete data elements.

Hospital System(s): GE Mac-Lab/Cardiolab, MERGE Hemo/Cardio, Philips WITT/XPERS-IM, Change Healthcare, Siemens Sensis, St. Jude, Biotronik, Medtronic, and more.

Registries Affected: ACC-NCDR CathPCI & EP Device Implant. In some cases, these interfaces can be leveraged for other clinical registries.

Does this interface create events?: Yes.

Real-time: No, once a case is closed, the data is automatically routed to a service, which in turn updates the heartbase repository with corresponding discrete data elements.

Interface Functionality: Data from the EHR database, such as Epic Clarity/Caboodle or Cerner Millennium, will be automated via an MFT process to prepopulate registry data within the heartbase application. Using a specification provided by the heartbase team, this interface can be tailored to certain sections of the registry form, such as History & Risk Factors, Medications, and Lab Results. Using an extract versus a standardized interface makes the data selection and validation far more granular and can greatly reduce the data abstraction burden.

Hospital System(s): All EHR vendors.

Registries Affected: Varies site-to-site.

Does this interface create events?: Yes.

Real-time: Varies.

Interface Functionality: heartbase provides custom data lake and third-party extracts based on the needs of the site.

Hospital System(s): Data Lakes and Other Third-Party Systems

Registries Affected: Varies site-to-site.

Does this interface create events?: No, this is an outbound interface.

Real-time: Varies.

Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) is an initiative by healthcare professionals to improve hospital system interoperability by engaging clinicians, health authorities, industry, and users to develop, test, and implement standards-based solutions to vital health information needs.

Heartbase President Nicholas Gawrit has served as co-chair of the Cardiology Domain of the IHE Technical Committee since 2014. During his tenure as co-chair he has overseen numerous new standards profiles, including co-authoring the Cardiac Procedure Note (CPN), which consolidated work in the Cath Report Content (CRC) Profile, including Structural Heart Procedures, and the Electrophysiology Report Content Implant/Explant (EPRC-IE) supplement to set standards for interoperability between cardiovascular service lines, streamline data collection to help hospitals meet registry goals, and maximize compliance to MACRA and MIPS. The CPN was developed with a focus on Cath Lab Reports & Electrophysiology Implant and Explant procedures, but aims to provide an extensive framework to allow for the addition of further report templates in the future (e.g., general cardiac imaging procedures like Echocardiography, cardiac CT, MR, or Nuclear Medicine Imaging).

When you’ve been a data manager for a while, you really start to understand the importance of a good vendor. I’ve had a relationship with heartbase for the past 11 years. I feel so bad for other data abstractors because I never hear “no” from my vendor.

From a data manager perspective, it can be very stressful. Every single time I reach out to heartbase support, my needs are always, always met within hours. I have a great relationship with the heartbase team. The quality of the customer support, the friendship, is all there at every level. They are amazing!!

Tami K., Data Manager

Solution FAQ

Data Entry

While users can be trained to create custom fields in heartbase, most hospitals elect for heartbase to manage custom fields and registries. Typically the heartbase license will include a small amount of vendor-supported custom fields each year.

To create a custom field, users log a customization request with heartbase support. The heartbase support team will then verify the definitions of the requested field(s) to see if they match any existing fields already present in the database within the network. Additional considerations such as inclusion in specific reports and user permissions will be discussed. After this customization is approved, this project is initiated by the heartbase team and is typically implemented within 1-3 weeks of authorization, depending on the complexity of the request.

All custom fields are completely queryable using the hbQuery Tool reporting feature.

Yes. Heartbase takes great pride in being one of the first vendors to certify with each new registry version and actively adapts to further revisions changes as they are released.

Major “version” updates typically occur every 2-4 years per registry. Once heartbase receives the vendor specification for the updated version, the development and certification process generally takes between 4-6 weeks. Once certification is complete, heartbase installs the update and provides user training covering the specific registry changes. Typically this is performed 1-2 weeks before the go-live of the new registry version.

The national registries periodically release minor changes, such as the ACC-NCDR CathPCI COVID-19 Auxillary Fields. These changes are usually applied to the client’s system within 2-3 weeks of the finalizedcomplete specification’s release.

All version updates are provided and installed by a heartbase® support team member. Limited IT involvement is required for the life of the heartbase® project, with the exception of providing a hardware backup for the heartbase® server.

Throughout our nearly 30-year history, heartbase has worked with every historical version of each significant CV registry. Because of this wealth of experience and heartbase’s unique, longitudinal, patient-centric data model, we can migrate historical data for nearly every registry across multiple registry versions, preserving historical data definitions and allowing for reporting across the entire patient history. Heartbase uses registry harvest files for standard data migrations.

Additionally, heartbase has extensive experience importing custom historical data, including custom registries dating back to the 1970s. For custom historical data, heartbase will work with your team to map the data to the new registry, cleaning and standardizing the data wherever needed.

Yes. The heartbase solution features a vast number of data validation tools and reports:

  • Single Case Audit – All heartbase data entry forms come equipped with the heartbase “Single Case Audit” tool that checks the form for data completeness, relational checks (STS ACSD), and outliers, including any custom fields incorporated into the registry. An Audit List is then automatically generated, including an interactive search feature, allowing users to navigate any outstanding fields by simply clicking the value in the list. This will highlight the item as the active field and navigate the form, so the selected field is at the top of the screen.  Any field memos committed to the patient record will appear on the Audit List in green text.
  • Full Registry Audit – When the user is ready to submit their data harvest to the registries, they can run the full “Registry Audit” program, which will run a full audit of all cases for the date range of the harvest. This will give a CSV output of missing fields, relational checks (STS ACSD), as well as the interactive heartbase “DataView,” which allows the users to access the registry record for data correction directly.
  • Null Value Queries – The heartbase Query Tool can query any field on the registry form, including all custom fields. Using the Conditional Logic functions, users can validate any value of the selected fields, including any missing or “Null” values. This solution requires no programming knowledge and offers a simple point-and-click UI.

On-Demand CathPCI AUC & Risk Scoring, and STS NQF & Risk Calculator – Users can immediately score patients for AUC and Risk metrics upon completion of a case.

Yes, when heartbase® captures information from the real-time ADT interface from the EHR, a campus-ID is also transmitted. This campus-id is stored within each event. At the time of harvest, there is a drop-down for multi-campus databases. The user simply selects the campus they wish to harvest, and a file is generated specifically for that site.

Yes. User roles are fully customizable in heartbase, meaning that read, write, and delete permissions can be restricted at the individual field level. Read access can be similarly limited.

Additionally, hospitals can use specific role-based “User Views” which assign specific datasets to a user based on the hospital workflow, ensuring that the user only sees the data they are responsible for capturing. Roles are typically custom-tailored to each facility. Examples include: Pre-Surgical Assessment (which can be entered pre-op in the office), RN, perfusion, anesthesia, lab, and surgery teams.

Heartbase audit tools track when a change is made in the system and by whom.

Unlike other vendors, heartbase loads the full data entry form at one time – this means users never have to switch between screens.

Users can easily switch between sections of the registry form using our navigation panel and quickly search registry fields by Value Label, ShortName, or Sequence Number.

Yes, heartbase forms include access to the full registry data dictionary. Additionally, all fields offer a “Field Help” button that provides a pop-up window containing the definition, ShortName, and Sequence Number for that specific field.

Yes. Every heartbase form includes the ability to leave a “Field or Record Memo” – a custom note discrete to a particular variable or section of the data entry form.

Field memos appear in the heartbase Single Case Audit tool and the pre-harvest audit report, so users can always be reminded of their notes when performing data cleanup.

Reporting

Yes. hbCOR exports data to MS Excel, Google Sheets, CSV, TXT, PDF, DOC, DOCX, SPSS SAV, SAS, XML, CDA, and more.

If your Healthcare Intelligence teams use a data lake or have a preferred statistical toolset (Such as Tableau, Cognos, or Statit), heartbase can export flat-file data retrievals of the entire registry dataset for import into the preferred reporting tool.

Yes. With hbCOR’s hbQuery Tool, all data entry fields, including custom fields, are easily queryable using the heartbase point-and-click query tool – no programming skills using table joins, SQL, or MS Access are required, the tool automatically does that FOR you. The query tool also features several calculated fields such as Patient Age, LOS, and STS Operative Category (ProcID). Users can input conditional logic into their queries and save them for future use.

Yes. Audit Logs in both a report form and on the data entry form are available for:

  • User login activity
  • Data viewing –  user access of a record
  • Data editing – any user-level or interface update to any field
  • Deletion of records
  • Data source – If data is imported from an interface, that interface will be included in the audit report.

Yes. Heartbase offers User Activity and Audit reports. Tracked user activity includes: field views, field additions/changes, field deletions, and input sources (user ID or interface). These reports are generally only available to users with administrative privileges.

Yes. Heartbase has a variety of summary reports for the ACC/STS executive measures, including AUC, Risk-Adjusted Measures, NQF/MIPS, data metrics related to the STS STAR rating, and other quality performance measures. Our library features many out-of-the-box reports, including Physician/Hospital Scorecards, NQF/MIPS/AUC metrics, Risk-Adjusted Metrics, Complications/Mortality Reporting, and several registry-specific reports such as the “CP-MI Door to Balloon Timeline.”  Reports can be run by network, region/division, facility, and provider with patient-level drill-through.

For example, the heartbase STS Adult Cardiac Measure Report is often used as an audit tool for STS ACSD. While heartbase cannot provide an exact STAR report, as those targets change quarter-to-quarter, an advanced drill-down (to the individual patient) report has been made available to closely mirror what the STAR report analyzes.  This allows users to quickly identify potential fallouts for the metrics comprising the STAR rating.

Yes. Throughout our nearly 30-year history, heartbase has worked with every historical version of each significant CV registry. Because of this wealth of experience and heartbase’s unique, longitudinal, patient-centric data model, users can run custom ad-hoc queries with the hbQuery Tool or all-version standard reports which span multiple versions of any given registry.

Interoperability

Yes, Heartbase consumes standardized HL7 messages from EHR modules in real-time, including but not limited to ADT, Orders, Abstraction (Coding), Medications, Labs, Epic OpTime, etc., via interfaces.

We have a variety of additional interfaces from the EMR/EHR. Example solutions include:

  • HL7 ADT Interface
  • EHR Clinical Data Extract
  • HL7 ABS Interface
  • Billing Code Extract
  • Financial Data Extract

Heartbase®, Inc. successfully completed IHE Connectathon Testing in January 2013, for the Retrieve Form for Data Capture(RFD) Profile. This profile enables pre-population of hbCOR forms with discrete data elements from the EHR and sends changed elements back to the EHR post entry/audit. This interface is scalable to include any coded or discrete data element from Epic Systems, Cerner, and Allscripts.

Heartbase® has also built an array of labs, medications, and other custom EHR interfaces. For data pre-population into the STS Adult Cardiac registry, the STS is very strict about allowing interfaces as specified in their contracts with both the hospital and vendor. We will need to ensure that the data elements have an exact match in definition in order to have the flow into heartbase®.

Yes. Data exported from Hemodynamic Monitoring Systems prepopulatesAll data from these interfaces are consumed to both prepopulate ACC-NCDR fields and any additional custom fields. Data from these interfaces can beare typically used to generate equipment level reports, including stent usage by the manufacturer for compliance purposes. This data is available on both the site and enterprise levels, depending on the user’s access.

Yes. Heartbase can work with hospitals to import data from a data lake, or create other custom imports from hospitals systems.

Using the heartbase EHR extract model, in which data from the EHR is automated via an MFT (manual file transfer) process-based extract, to prepopulates registry data within the heartbase application. Using a specification, provided by the heartbase team, this extract can be tailored to certain sections of the registry form such as History & Risk Factors, Medications, and Lab Results. By using an extract versus a standardized interface, the data selection and validation is far more granular, and can greatly reduce the data abstraction burden.

Customer Support

heartbase® is relationship-driven and prides itself on its comprehensive and personalized support, as our users can testify. Our solutions are 100% vendor-supported, meaning routine technical support, version upgrades, maintenance, training in database operation, and standard report writing are included with purchase. 

Our US-Based Support staff is accessible by phone, email, or through our online support ticket system, and provides timely and effective solutions to client requests. From assistance during a rapidly approaching data deadline, to educational sessions or customization, our support staff will be at your side every step of the way.

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