The UK Central Cardiac Audit Database: creating the wellspring for
better care for heart babies
Martin Old, Service Manager for the National Clinical Audit
Support Programme, reports on some of the early achievements in the
construction of this unique evidence base.
abstract
The Central Cardiac Audit Database (CCAD) was set up just over three
years ago following the Kennedy Inquiry on infants’ deaths at the Bristol
Royal Infirmary.
Its aim is to meet the need for an accurate way of recording and
monitoring cardiac care across the UK — not just as an early warning
system of when things go wrong and not just for infants, but as a measure
of long-term outcomes — to ensure that tragedies like Bristol can never
happen again and that all heart-disease patients can be confident about
the quality of their care, wherever they receive it.
Data gathering and validation are described briefly, and some resulting
information presented — mainly from the first year of operation. The CCAD
is believed to be the first study in the world to present nationwide
validated centre-specific survival data for the treatment of children with
congenital heart disease.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2004; 21(5): 26–8.
