Empirically based tools for analyzing mortality and morbidity associated with congenital heart surgery

Congenital heart surgery outcomes analysis requires reliable methods of estimating the risk of adverse outcomes. In the past, methods used for risk adjusted comparisons of outcomes from congenital heart surgery relied on expert opinion about perceived complexity of treatment. The development and growth of national and international congenital heart surgery clinical registry databases has resulted in the availability of large datasets for analysis. The adoption by these registries of standardized nomenclature and definitions and their use of a uniform set of data elements has made it possible to apply robust statistical methodology to these large sets of objective data to develop empirically based tools for analysis of mortality and morbidity associated with congenital heart surgery. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons - European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery Congenital Heart Surgery Mortality Score and Categories (STAT Mortality Categories) and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Morbidity Score and Categories are now widely used in reporting of outcomes, in quality assessment, and in outcomes research.