Introduction of the Japan Congenital Cardiovascular Surgery Database

Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery
Vol.27 No.1 2011 (2-8)

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Arata Murakami,^{1, 3)} Kazuo Kitahori,¹⁾ Tetsuhiro Takaoka,¹⁾ Shinichi Takamoto,^2,3) Takeshi Konuma,⁴⁾ Goki Matsumura,⁴⁾ Hiroaki Miyata,^{3, 5)} Syunji Sano,^3,6) Masashi Okada,⁷⁾ and Norio Higuchi⁸⁾

¹⁾Department of Cardiac Surgery, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ²⁾Mitsui Memorial Hospital, Tokyo, Japan, ³⁾Japan Cardiovascular Surgery Database Organization, Tokyo, Japan, ⁴⁾Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Heart Center, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Tokyo, Japan, ⁵⁾Department of Healthcare Quality Assessment, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, ⁶⁾Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Okayama University, Okayama, Japan, ⁷⁾Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Comprehensive Human Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan, ⁸⁾Law Department, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Abstract

Congenital heart surgery is high risk and highly demanding. In Japan, about 10,000 procedures are performed per year for about 200 different types of congenital heart defects, and about 160 procedures are used. Constructing a database will make risk adjustment possible, which is essential for outcome analysis. The Japan Congenital Cardiovascular Surgery Database started to collect data on the web in August 2008. The progress of this database is presented in this paper. It also introduces the Aristotle basic complexity score, Aristotle comprehensive score, and the Risk Adjustment in Congenital Heart Surgery System, whose value in predicting mortality is being evaluated by the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. The database of congenital cardiovascular surgery will provide quality improvement and risk adjustment and will promote benchmarking and accountability of the participating institutes. The database will provide fundamental data for effective posting of medical information based on the incidence of congenital heart surgery.