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For the past two years, leaders of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) have been hard at work developing a novel and transformative 21st century Quality Gateway program for the cardiothoracic surgical community, in response to widely recognized challenges with historical platforms. It became clear as we listened to surgeons and data managers that the best way forward would be to build from the ground up, and that’s exactly what we are doing.
Built on an Open Source, Cloud-based platform, the AATS Quality Gateway ensures you will never need to enter your data into another costly, and closed system ever again. With customizable dashboards and advanced data visualization, you will always be able to access your data whenever and however you want it.
The AATS Quality Gateway brings your data to the web in real-time, and with rapid feedback. Featuring new tools to allow you to collaborate and share best practice ideas in a single web-based ecosystem, the AATS has built a platform that will save you time and money, and most importantly, help you deliver better information and care to your patients:
Hypothetical collaboration for recognized excess strokes for CABG and valve procedures. Web mockup by HUBZero. A, Data display. Blue box highlights the excess strokes. Within the highlighted area is an icon that will link to my peer quality discussion group. B, Dialog with my quality peer discussion group about my excess strokes. CABG, Coronary artery bypass grafting; O/E, observed/expected.
Our ambition for our new Quality Gateway is detailed in this month’s Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Members of our core leadership team include:
Dr. David H. Adams (Chair) David H. Adams, MD, is the immediate past-president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery and currently serves as President of the AATS Foundation. He is the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Professor and Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Cardiac Surgeon-in-Chief of the Mount Sinai Health System.
Dr. Eugene Blackstone Eugene H. Blackstone, MD, full-time Head, Clinical Investigations, Heart and Vascular Institute (HVI), Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Blackstone is statistical editor of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. He has led efforts in machine learning since the mid-1980s and artificial intelligence for medical database architecture since the early 1990s.
Ken McCardle, MS Ken McCardle, MS, is Vice President, Clinical Operations at the Mount Sinai Health System. Ken and his team of 50 oversee the health system’s quality data sets and clinical databases. Ken is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Rick Mouser Recently hired as the AQAP Administrative Director with AATS. He has recently served as Business Development Director at HubZero, and is an experienced manager, helping PI's with N.S.F. and N.I.H. funding build web platforms for data management projects.
Dr. Jeffrey Rich Dr. Jeffrey Rich is a past president of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He is Chairman of Operations and Strategy for the Cleveland Clinic’s Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute. He directed the Center for Medicare Management, and was a member of the Board of Directors of the National Quality Forum.
Dr. Julie Swain Julie Swain, MD, is Vice Chair for Clinical Performance for the Mount Sinai Health System and Director of the Center for Medical Devices (CMeD) at Mount Sinai Heart. In addition, she serves as Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery and Director of Clinical Research in the Department of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Surgeons and data managers like you have helped shape the need for and logic behind the AATS Quality Gateway. Now we need your help to refine the user experience of a platform that's built for and by our surgical community. Pilot sites are already contributing data, and we are finalizing initial pilot sites now. There are many benefits for early participation and we hope you will let us know if you are ready to learn more by visit aats.org/aqap.