2013 ACCF/AHA Key Data Elements and Definitions for Measuring the Clinical Management and Outcomes of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes and Coronary Artery Disease A Report of the American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Data Standards (Writing Committee to Develop Acute Coronary Syndromes and Coronary Artery Disease Clinical Data Standards)

The American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF) and the American Heart Association (AHA) support their members’ goal to improve the prevention and care of cardiovascular diseases through professional education, research, and development of guidelines and standards and by fostering policy that supports optimal patient outcomes. The ACCF and AHA recognize the importance of the use of clinical data standards for patient management, assessment of outcomes, and conduct of research, and the importance of defining the processes and outcomes of clinical care, whether in randomized trials, observational studies, registries, or quality-improvement initiatives. Hence, clinical data standards strive to define and standardize data relevant to clinical topics in cardiology, with the primary goal of assisting data collection by providing a platform of data elements and definitions applicable to various conditions. Broad agreement on a common vocabulary with reliable definitions used by all is vital to pool and/or compare data across studies to promote interoperability of electronic health records (EHRs) …