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QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN PEDIATRIC CARDIOLOGY: AN OVERVIEW
OF NATIONAL INITIATIVES
G.L. Rosenthal
Children's Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, USA
Single-center, quality improvement (QI) efforts in pediatric and congenital cardiovascular
care have been limited by patient heterogeneity, rare disease entities, and complex
interdisciplinary care processes. To overcome these challenges, several national QI
efforts are being developed. The QI Taskforce of the Adult Congenital/Pediatric
Cardiology Section of the American College of Cardiology is developing quality metrics
for benchmarking heart center performance. It has also worked with the National
Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) to develop a congenital heart component for the
NCDR. The Joint Council for Congenital Heart Disease (JCCHD) is developing a
national QI project to improve outcomes following first-stage palliation for hypoplastic
left heart syndrome. These national efforts overcome some of the QI challenges in the
field by fostering collaboration among pediatric cardiologists. A progress update will be
provided during this talk.