Antwerp, October 9th, 2008
Dear Colleagues,
The 2006 report is nearly finished and will be available at our annual meeting next month.
We received nearly all data for 2007. I want to thank all centres who contributed; especially those who have send the data early.
May I encourage the centres that did not send their data to do ASAP? Please, also respond to the error-reports. The corrections are important. Due to the incomplete contribution, we could not start the analysis by now. Nevertheless, we would like to give an overview of 2007 during our congress.
May I remind you to the two projects we have setup ?
The participation in the project on Type A dissection is mandatory since we have to organize projects to improve the quality of care in cardiac surgery (Royal Decree 15 Feb 1999 on the college of cardiac surgery).
All patients with an acute type A dissection operated between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009 have to be enrolled. The follow up will be one year (till May 31, 2010).
You will find the documents on our website:
http://www.bacts.org/sections/database/Pilot_Projects/Pilot_Projects-articles/article.html
http://www.bacts.org/documents/PDF/Database/letter_TypeA.pdf
http://www.bacts.org/documents/PDF/Database/TypeA_Quest.pdf
http://www.bacts.org/documents/PDF/Database/Type_A_1YearFU.pdf
Note the patient ID, this should be an anonymous patient identification number and cannot be blank. This ID has to be the same in the questionnaire and the follow-up form. Please send the documents regularly to Carine Vandeweyer in order we have an idea of the progression of the project. Also identify your centre on the envelope or an accompanying letter. Only the data manager has the patient-centre identification. The data will be pooled and the analysis is completely anonymous.
The second project is on 90 day survival after isolated CABG.
http://www.bacts.org/sections/database/Pilot_Projects/Pilot_Projects-articles/article1.html
Participation in this project is voluntary.
Attached, you will find a contact form for the BACTS Database Committee.
Please complete this form and return it to Carine Vandeweyer.
On behalf of the BACTS database committee,
Bernard Stockman, chairman