The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has partnered with the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C., to connect STS' clinical database with CMS claims data, enabling STS National Database users to track long-term patient outcomes.
The STS National Database currently contains short-term data, including information on a patient's hospital outcome and outcomes up to 30 days after discharge. The big data partnership with Duke would allow researchers and providers to track how patients fare years down the road, improving understanding of long-term patient outcomes with the goal of ultimately improving patient care.
Using the database, "STS will be able to create more accurate and up-to-date risk models and long-term survival calculators for individual procedures," said David M. Shahian, MD, chair of the STS workforce on national databases, in a news release. "Surgeons would be able to estimate survival probability for patients based on their specific illness severity, co-existing medical conditions and symptoms. This is particularly important for patients as they research treatment options and work with their physician teams to select the care they feel is best."
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