Pediatric Acute Care Cardiology Collaborative Publishes Findings from Data Registry Audit and Validation Study

In a study published in 2022, the Pediatric Acute Care Cardiology Collaborative (PAC3) reported on developing an extensive audit and validation process of the Collaborative’s clinical data registry.

PAC3 was formed to improve the quality, value, and experience of inpatient cardiac care in partnership with other national medical collaborative organizations and national parent advocacy groups. PAC3 currently consists of 43 member institutions in the United States and Canada, and these partner institutions collaborate through a validated, audited, and prospective data registry that is employed to devise ways to reduce acute care complications, hospital length of stay, and readmissions rates while simultaneously working to improve the patient, family, and provider experience.

The Heart Institute at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh has been a member of the collaborative since its inception, and PAC3 efforts and studies at UPMC Children’s are led by Evonne Morell, DO, director of Inpatient General Pediatric Cardiology services and director of Quality Improvement for General Cardiology at UPMC Children's. Dr. Morell's efforts with PAC3 include work on the Collaborative's Quality Improvement Subcommittee and being an executive member of the organization.

Co-authoring the PAC3 study was Frederick Roberts, a lead data coordinator and analyst with the Heart Institute at UPMC Children's.

Summary of Findings

PAC3 developed a four-tier auditing and validation process to analyze and verify the veracity and integrity of registry data being collected by member institutions that continue to expand within the Collaborative.

PAC3 research teams audited registry data from 9 facilities using the four-tier process. The study examined a total of 386 randomly selected patient encounters comprising 27,086 individual data fields.

The analysis looked at aggregate accuracy measures in addition to identifying rates of major and minor data discrepancies based on their relevance to outcomes and provisions of clinical care for specific cases. Also reviewed were data defined as critical, challenging to obtain, or values shared with PC4 and STS registries.

The overall accuracy rate of the data from the nine audited centers was 99.27%, while the rate of major discrepancies was low at 0.51% in aggregate.

In total, the auditing process and findings show that data collected as part of the PAC3 registry maintains a high degree of accuracy, while the novel auditing process developed to facilitate assessments of the data collected by member institutions is feasible and scalable as the organization grows. The methods were adaptable to a virtual format, allowing audits to continue during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Critically important is the validation of the data showing it meets the highest levels of accuracy in comparison to other established registries, such as those of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium. This ensures that information collected and employed in research projects and the pursuit of quality improvement measures and processes by member institutions or other entities relying on the clinical data sets that are part of the registry is reliable.

For additional information about the auditing process employed in the study and further detailed findings, please use the reference link below.

Reference

Khadr L, Hart SA, Schachtner S, Graupe M, Veneziale KL, Bushnell J, Roberts F, Jolly-Passerini H, Madsen N. Paediatric Acute Care Cardiology Collaborative Data Registry Validation. Cardiology in the Young. 2022; 1-6.