(November 4, 1999) WASHINGTON, DC - The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) announced today that it was awarded nearly $1.5 million by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) for research supporting a first-ever national initiative to improve the quality of heart bypass surgery in the United States.
This three-year effort will facilitate a quality improvement and research effort using the unique Society Thoracic Surgeons' National Database. This database contains over one million heart bypass cases submitted by thoracic surgeons since 1989. It is the most comprehensive collection of cardiac surgical outcomes data in the world. Using this information, STS researchers, in collaboration with the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), will conduct three independent analyses in the following areas:
- Benchmarking: Researchers will determine whether providing surgeons and hospitals with feedback on how their local bypass care practices and outcomes (results) compare with those from state and national benchmarks influences subsequent care and outcomes.
- Intervention: Using a randomized control design, researchers will investigate whether a focused national education intervention can change how surgeons perform bypass procedures in order to improve the quality of delivered care.
- The Value of Education: A final component examines whether or not states that have regional quality improvement efforts, such as regular meetings between local surgeons to exchange ideas and compare results, have better outcomes than those who do not have these activities.
"This study represents another important step in our efforts to create a gold standard for cardiac surgery," said Nicholas T. Kouchoukos, MD, president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. "Members of our organization will be able to measure their own performance while learning from the actions of their peers. Our goal from this study is to establish a comprehensive learning tool that will have an almost immediate and meaningful impact on the quality of cardiac surgery in the United States and the quality of life of our patients."
Leading this research will be T. Bruce Ferguson, Jr., MD, a member of the Society's National Database and Database Liaison Committees. He is joined by Frederick Grover, MD, chairman of the Society's National Database Committee, and Eric Peterson, MD, MPH, with the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Project Director of the DCRI-STS Database effort.
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons is a medical specialty society for thoracic surgeons in the United States and around the world. With over 4,100 members, the Society represents the surgical practice areas of cardiac surgery (heart), general thoracic surgery (lung, esophagus, and mediastatum), pediatric thoracic surgery, and transplant surgery. The Society is committed to saving, extending, and improving the quality of life for all Americans with cardiac and thoracic surgical diseases.