It’s Time to Renew for 2012
The NCDR has kicked off the 2012 renewal season by sending packets to the billing contact listed in your online profile.

Some important information for 2012:

• A new contract amendment is required for all participants
• The deadline for renewals is December 31, 2011
• If your facility is setup under a corporate account, all renewal materials will be sent to your corporate contact

If your billing contact did not receive your renewal packet by email this week, please check your online profile to be sure that the correct billing contact is listed for your hospital. You can access your profile under the Administration tab when logged into www.ncdr.com. If you have any questions, please contact the NCDR Product Support Team at (800) 257-4737 or ncdr@acc.org. Thank you again for another successful year. We look forward to working with you in 2012!

NCDR Highlighted in ACC’s UN Summit Address
ACC President-Elect William Zoghbi, MD, FACC addressed the United Nations Summit on Non-Communicable Diseases in September to argue that greatly reducing heart disease should be a target of the United Nations' eight Millennium Development Goals. It is reported by the World Heart Federation that over 17 million people die from cardiovascular disease every year, and 80 percent of those deaths occur in the world's least developed and poorest countries.

Dr. Zhogbi mentioned the importance of the NCDR^® in his testimony. "The ACC has worked with its international chapters to expand the use of the National Cardiovascular Data Registry across the globe, which can help developing countries track their progress on cardiovascular care to improve their patients' outcomes," Zoghbi said. "The College will continue to lobby U.S. and international bodies for ways we can maximize global efforts around combating heart disease and other non-communicable diseases."

State Agency takes “ACTION” for Better Outcomes
Washington state’s Clinical Outcomes Assessment Program (COAP) is now recommending that all hospitals in the state participate in ACTION Registry^®-GWTG™ as part of the agency’s focus on coordination of care. Incorporating ACTION Registry-GWTG data collection into their quality improvement program will assist COAP in their efforts to improve the quality of care for heart disease patients who receive cardiac interventions and address system issues such as door-to-door transfers.

Washington state hospitals that perform PCIs are likely already meeting COAP data submission requirements with their CathPCI Registry^® data. Now, they can further these quality improvement efforts through ACTION Registry-GWTG participation.

This news highlights the flexibility and utility of NCDR registries, which can help hospitals meet multiple reporting requirements. Registries illustrate where hospitals and practices can be more efficient and show where they stand with local and national benchmarks.

Interoperability from CathPCI Registry^® to ACTION Registry^®-GWTG™
This month, NCDR participants who use the ACC’s web-based data collection tool for both ACTION Registry-GWTG and CathPCI Registry will save time on data entry because 60 data elements from the CathPCI Registry will now self-populate to the ACTION Registry-GWTG. This new interoperability will decrease data entry time by 50% for ACTION Registry-GWTG Limited users and cut down data entry time by a quarter for ACTION Registry-GWTG Premier users. Stay tuned to the bi-weekly Registry Update for details about a webinar that will be held to provide more information about this new interoperability.

NCDR Welcomes New International Participant A new international participant has joined the CathPCI Registry. King Abdulaziz Medical City located in Riyadh Saudi Arabia joined the NCDR during the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress in Paris this September.

PINNACLE Registry^® PQRS 2011 Update:
Data Release Consent Forms will be sent to eligible providers in October
Again for 2011, CMS has approved the PINNACLE Registry^® as a Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) submission option. The registry offers PQRS submission for 14 clinical measures to registry participants who are actively collecting and submitting data. The PINNACLE Registry also offers an e-Prescribing (eRx) reporting option to PQRS submitters, for a potential additional incentive payment from CMS.

The registry will be sending Data Release Consent Forms (DRCF) to eligible providers beginning this month. Only providers return a DRCF to the ACC for PQRS/eRx reporting will have aggregate data submitted to CMS. The registry cannot submit anything to CMS without receiving written permission from each provider though a 2011 Data Release Consent Form.

DRCFs must be signed each year. Even if your practice submitted DRCFs for 2010, CMS now requires newly signed forms for 2011.

Providers at practices that are currently submitting data to the PINNACLE Registry are likely eligible to submit for one or both of these incentives. If your practice is not yet submitting data, or at least in the process of data mapping with the system integration (SI) solution, you will not be eligible for 2011 PQRS submission. We look forward to working with you to submit for 2012.

If you have questions about PQRS, click here to download our extensive PQRS Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document, or contact the PINNACLE Registry Support Team at (800) 257-4737 or ncdr@acc.org. 

Recently Published NCDR Research

The NCDR Research Pipeline, which tracks NCDR abstracts and manuscripts from application through publication, has been very busy this fall. Fourteen abstracts based on NCDR data have been accepted to the AHA Scientific Sessions in Orlando. Watch your email for more information on this important research.

In addition to the acceptance of many abstracts, four new papers have been published in peer-reviewed journals:

CathPCI Registry^®

Prevalence and Outcomes of Same-Day Discharge After Elective Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Among Older Patients, Journal of the American Medical Association

Left Circumflex Occlusion in Acute Myocardial Infarction (from the National Cardiovascular Data Registry), American Journal of Cardiology

ICD Registry™

Influence of Age on Perioperative Complications Among Patients Undergoing Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillators for Primary Prevention in the United States, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes

Age Differences in Primary Prevention Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator Use in U.S. Individuals, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society

Related Quality News

Ten Tips to Improve Appropriate Use Scores for Elective PCI

The lead story in SCAI’s latest newsletter features strategies for improving communications across cath lab teams and upgrading documentation of PCI procedures in general.

SCAI, the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, developed a list of ten tips after a recent study applying Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) to PCI procedures captured in the CathPCI Registry received mostly negative press coverage. Using the AUC, the study’s authors categorized both acute and elective PCI procedures as "appropriate," "inappropriate," or "uncertain." Interestingly, the vast majority of the PCI cases evaluated in the study were deemed appropriate, but findings showed that opportunities for improvement, particularly with elective PCI, do exist. Click here to read the NCDR Research Network email summarizing this paper.

SCAI’s “ten tips,” culled from discussion with a number of SCAI members, are meant to be used in concert with the tools in the Quality Improvement Toolkit (SCAI-QIT) to help interventional cardiologists examine their cath lab processes and identify opportunities for improvement.

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NCDR Highlighted in ACC’s UN Summit Address

State Agency takes “ACTION” for Better Outcomes

Interoperability from CathPCI Registry to ACTION Registry-GWTG

NCDR Welcomes New International Participant

PINNACLE Registry PQRS 2011 Update

Recently Published NCDR Research

Ten Tips to Improve Appropriate Use Scores for Elective PCI

Follow CardioSmart on Twitter

NCDR in the News:

Stunning Improvements in D2B Times in the U.S., Cardiology

Previous Issues of News and Views

September, 2011

July/August, 2011

June, 2011

Calendar:

CARE Registry RSM/New User Call
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

ICD Registry Site Manager Call
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

CathPCI Registry Site Manager Call
Thursday, October 20, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

IMPACT Registry RSM/New User Call
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

ACTION Registry-GWTG Site Manager Call
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

ACTION Registry-GWTG New User Call
Thursday, November 10, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

CathPCI Registry New User Call
Thursday, December 1, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

ICD Registry New User Call
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
1:00 p.m. Eastern

NCDR Archived Webinars:

CathPCI Registry Dashboard Overview New

ACTION Registry–GWTG Outcomes Reports – Basic Navigation (new participants)

ACTION Registry–GWTG 2011 Outcomes Reports Enhancements

The Importance of Getting Green

NCDR Systems Alerts Review: ICD Registry, CathPCI Registry, IMPACT Registry, ACTION Registry-GWTG

ACTION Registry–GWTG Updates V2.2

ACTION Registry–GWTG Website Navigation

ACTION Registry-GWTG Completing the Online Data Collection Tool: Session 1 & 2

CARE Registry Website Navigation

CathPCI Registry Case Study V4.3

CathPCI Registry Website Navigation

CathPCI Registry DQRI Process

ICD Registry Data Quality Review (DQR) Process V2.1

ICD Registry Data Collection Tool V2.1

ICD Registry Navigation Support

IMPACT Registry Version 1.0 Website Navigation

IMPACT Registry Version 1.0: Data Collection Form and Definitions Part I, II & II

To access recorded webinars, login here. Choose a registry home page and click on Resources.

NCDR Registries:

NCDR^® is an initiative of the American College of Cardiology Foundation^®, with partnering support from the following organizations: CARE Registry^®-The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, Society of Interventional Radiology, American Academy of Neurology, American Association of Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Society for Vascular Medicine, and Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology; CathPCI Registry^®-The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions; ICD Registry™-Heart Rhythm Society; IMPACT Registry™-The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions and American Academy of Pediatrics; PINNACLE Registry™-MedAxiom and Spirit of Women; ACTION Registry^®-GWTG™- An initiative of the American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association, with partnering support from Society of Chest Pain Centers, The American College of Emergency Physicians, and The Society of Hospital Medicine.