ArborMetrix And CardioAccess Partner To Create National Registry For Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium

Registry will be unveiled at Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society 9th International Conference, December 9-12, 2012

ArborMetrix, Inc., the leading provider of clinically rich, real-time analytics for acute and specialty care, announced recently that it is partnering with CardioAccess, a systems integrator specializing in applications and databases for heart disease, to create and co-market a national registry for the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4). The fully integrated registry and analytics solution will drive the development and adoption of evidence-based best practices that improve care for critically ill patients with pediatric and congenital heart disease.

Attendees at the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Society (PCICS) 9th International Conference, Dec. 9-12, 2012, at Loews Miami Beach Hotel can request a sneak preview of the registry's capabilities at the PC4 Exhibit, Table 9 in Salon 4. They can preview the real-time dashboards and reporting that incorporate key specialty-specific quality measures and integrate clinical, demographic, administrative and other disparate data. They can also learn how this provides physicians and other clinicians with the most relevant and accurate benchmarking and advanced clinical decision support to improve clinical performance and resource utilization.

PC4 chose the integrated solution from ArborMetrix and CardioAccess because it will provide participating hospitals with:

• 24/7 access to real-time, reliable, and actionable data to be used for local quality improvement
• Risk- and reliability-adjusted comparative analyses on quality metrics selected by the consortium
• Innovative and sophisticated informatics platforms that integrate with other registry projects in pediatric cardiac care
• An infrastructure to identify and disseminate evidenced-based practices that improve clinical and resource utilization outcomes
• A high return on investment

PC4 Executive Director Michael Gaies, M.D., M.P.H., a pediatric cardiac intensivist who is also an assistant professor in the Division of Pediatric Cardiology and the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital Congenital Heart Center, explained that the PC4 wants to implement a flexible, affordable and effective clinical registry that can be easily configured to address the specific needs of the collaborative and its members.

"Integrating the ArborMetrix solution with CardioAccess' comprehensive congenital heart disease database will provide our members with seamless data acquisition, dynamic benchmarking and real-time, actionable insights about variations in clinical outcomes and resource utilization, and the ability to monitor improvements and make necessary course corrections. Participants will enjoy the most innovative informatics platform available to registries in the congenital cardiac community, with the potential to reduce the burden of data collection, by far the greatest barrier to participation in quality improvement efforts. This product is priced favorably for all of the existing pediatric critical care registries, and promises a greater return on investment to clinicians and the member institutions."

He added, "We were impressed with the track record of the ArborMetrix registry platform and analytics engine in facilitating the development and dissemination of best practices for Michigan-based collaborative quality initiatives for bariatric surgery, general surgery, trauma and urological surgery, as well as the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons' national outcomes registry. PC4 aims to duplicate the success of these collaboratives and demonstrate marked improvement in clinical outcomes and cost savings in the care of pediatric patients with critical cardiac disease. This informatics solution is a key component for achieving our goals."

The registry will be available to all PC4 members. Early registry participants include:

• All Children's Hospital (St. Petersburg, Fla.)
• Children's Hospital of Atlanta
• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center
• Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
• Medical University of South Carolina Children's Hospital (Charleston)
• Texas Children's Hospital (Houston)
• Toronto Hospital for Sick Children
• University of California San Francisco Benioff Children's Hospital
• University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital (Ann Arbor)

"We're looking forward to sharing the PC4 registry's capabilities at the PCICS conference," said Howard Jacobs, CEO, CardioAccess, Inc. "We're excited about the opportunity to add this registry to our existing product line, thus expanding our efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of care for patients with critical congenital cardiovascular disease. This is part of our core mission."

According to Brett Furst, CEO of ArborMetrix, "This integrated solution ticks off all the boxes-real-time, risk-adjusted data; ease-of-use; seamless data aggregation; adaptability; specialty-specific focus; affordability; and dynamic benchmarking down to procedure-specific individual patient prognoses. And it's especially gratifying to know that our efforts will help some of the most vulnerable patients."

About the Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium
The Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium (PC4) aims to improve the quality of care to patients with critical pediatric and congenital cardiovascular disease in North America and beyond. Formed in 2009 with National Institutes of Health funding, PC4 is a unique collaborative of leaders in pediatric cardiac critical care, cardiac surgery, and cardiology representing a diverse group of centers caring for these vulnerable patients. The core pillars of collaborative quality improvement serve as the foundation for PC4: purposeful collection of specific clinical data on outcomes and practice, timely performance feedback to clinicians, and continuous improvement based on empirical analysis and collaborative learning.

About CardioAccess
CardioAccess, Inc. created the International Clinical Outcomes (ICO) Database, a fully relational, comprehensive database for both congenital and adult heart disease. The ICO database with its integrated "Centripetus Web Portal" is configured to analyze and report on key metrics for a particular specialty procedure. The Centripetus product allows for participation in multiple societal registries and enables national and regional benchmarking. This integrated registry solution is specifically configured to measure and report to the following registries: Congenital Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgical Database, Anesthesia module, ACC IMPACT Registry module (for adult and pediatric patients with congenital heart disease undergoing diagnostic catheterization and catheter-based interventions), and Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care.

The CardioAccess products enhance patient care, teaching, research and practice management. The goal is to improve medical care by providing medical practices with onsite and remote access to the databases. CardioAccess also develops CAConnect, an HL7 interface for all CardioAccess products to communicate with existing hospital (ADT) systems or any other HL7 software application. For more information, visit www.cardioaccess.com.

About ArborMetrix
ArborMetrix, Inc., based in Ann Arbor, Mich., is a healthcare analytics and software firm specializing in quality measurement, cost-efficiency and performance improvement for surgical and other acute hospital and specialty-based care. The company focuses on developing rigorous data analysis and actionable business intelligence solutions that raise the bar on quality, performance, utilization and cost-efficiency for hospitals, health systems, specialty societies, quality collaboratives and health plans. ArborMetrix' s unique, cloud-based technology evolved from groundbreaking research by the company founders on improving the quality of surgical care and econometric performance measurement. For more information, visit www.arbormetrix.com.