The Society of Thoracic Surgeons General Thoracic Surgery Database: 2020 Update on Outcomes and Research

Ann Thorac Surg. 2020 Sep;110(3):768-775. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2020.06.006. Epub 2020 Jun 20.

Abstract

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons General Thoracic Surgery Database (GTSD) remains the largest and most robust thoracic surgical database in the world. The GTSD provides participant sites with risk-adjusted performance reports for benchmarking and facilitates quality improvement initiatives. In addition the GTSD provides several mechanisms for high-quality research using data from over 283 participant sites and nearly 620,000 procedures since its inception in 2002. Participant sites are audited at random annually to ensure continued completeness and accuracy of the GTSD. In 2020 the GTSD migrated to a cloud-based interactive data platform, and the Task Force continues to refine the data collection form to decrease data entry burden while maintaining data quality, granularity, and relevance. This report provides an update on outcomes, volume trends, and database improvements as well as a summary of research productivity resulting from the GTSD over the preceding year.

MeSH terms

  • Benchmarking
  • Data Warehousing
  • Databases, Factual*
  • Humans
  • Outcome Assessment, Health Care / statistics & numerical data*
  • Quality Improvement
  • Societies, Medical
  • Thoracic Surgery*
  • Thoracic Surgical Procedures / statistics & numerical data*
  • United States