Antwerp, June 12, 2009
Dear Colleagues,
Dear Database Manager,
Currently the database committee is working on the 2007 report. This report will be finalized this month. After approval of the board the report will be available as a pdf-document on the website.
It is our goal to finish the 2008 report by the annual meeting in November.
I want to congratulate the 11 centres who have sent their data by now.
Can I kindly but firmly ask to the other centres to submit the 2008 data ASAP.
The deadline is July first, otherwise the database committee will not be able to produce the 2008 report on time for the annual meeting.
We have also two running projects:
Project on Acute type A dissection:
http://www.bacts.org/sections/database/Pilot_Projects/Pilot_Projects-articles/article.html
All patients with an acute type A dissection, operated between June 1, 2008 and May 31, 2009 should be included. The follow up will be one year.
This study will be used to fulfill the yearly contract between the BACTS and the Ministry of Health. As you know we have to conduct studies to improve the quality of care. (Royal Decree 15 Feb 1999 on the college of cardiac surgery). The study is anonymous and only our data manager (Carine Vandeweyer) has the link with the centre specific information. No data will be released by the database committee. Only the aggregated report will be released, after approval of the board.
10 centres have participated by now. Please submit the data so we have an overview of all the patients. The one year follow up will be asked next year.
Participation is this project is highly recommended. If by coincidence no patients underwent this procedure in your centre during the last year, a statement is considered as participation.
A second project is the project on 90-day mortality after isolated CABG. http://www.bacts.org/sections/database/Pilot_Projects/Pilot_Projects-articles/article1.html
Participation in this project is voluntary. All data are pooled and again we guarantee confidentiality.
Thank you for your contribution and cooperation.
On behalf of the database committee,
Bernard Stockman
Chairman Database Committee BACTS