Model Based Decision Making in Cardiac Surgery

Abstract

The development of models for risk stratification in cardiac surgery goes back a number of years. In 1989, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) created the first database version for use in the USA. In the year 2005 alone, the data from 234,532 operations were recorded in a structured way by 654 participating institutes. The value of these collected data is described by Ferguson (Ferguson, Dziuban, Edwards, Eiken, Shroyer, & Pairolero, 2000): “Because of their collective efforts, the goal to establish the STS National Data Base as a ‘gold standard’ worldwide for process and outcomes analysis related to cardiothoracic surgery is becoming a reality.” The number of research projects deriving from this is correspondingly large (The Society of Thoracic Surgeons National Database Access and Publications Task Force, 2006).