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Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, v2.61 Training Manual
Guide to Using Data Collection Form and Data Specifications
For each STS data version, a set of three documents serves as the resource for information about the data elements contained in that data version: • • • Data Collection Form (DCF) Annotated DCF STS Data Specifications
These three documents are located on the STS Web site (www.sts.org) under STS National Database/Data Managers Section. The information provided below will help you get the most benefit from these three important documents. 1. Data Collection Form (DCF) The Data Collection Form is a document designed for data collection that contains all of the fields that are collected locally by the database participant. This form visually shows how the fields are related to one another. The data on one DCF will be entered as one record in the database. A hardcopy of the DCF can be used to record data to be entered later. Please note that fields calculated by vendor software do not show up on the DCF. You are not required to use this version of the DCF. For instance, your software vendor may supply you with a version that matches their software data entry screens. You may also make your own to include customized fields. You can develop your own DCF that better suits your data collection methods, as long as the STS data elements are present and are consistent with the STS data specifications. Excerpt from the DCF:
The DCF contains instructions on when to answer specific fields:
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Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, v2.61 Training Manual
Guide to Using Data Collection Form and Data Specifications
Some directions will have you skip over entire sections that do not apply to a patient:
2. Annotated Data Collection Form (DCF) The annotated DCF contains exactly the same information as the non-annotated version (the DCF), with the addition of references to help find fields in the Data Specifications document (see below). The references include: • • Field “short” name Sequence number (SeqNo)
Printing in color is recommended because the reference information is in RED to distinguish it from the underlying information it is referencing. Excerpt from the Annotated DCF:
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Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, v2.61 Training Manual
Guide to Using Data Collection Form and Data Specifications
3. STS Data Specifications The STS Data Specifications document contains all information about the individual data fields. The fields are displayed in roughly the same order as the DCF. Below is an excerpt of one STS data field from the STS Data Specifications followed by a detailed explanation of each piece of information contained in the data specifications.
Field Name: The longer and more descriptive name of the field. In most cases, the Field Name does not change from one version of the specifications to the next, but they do change in some instances. Because of this, the Field Name value should never be used to refer to a field in reports, queries or programs. Short Name: The short, programmatic name assigned to the field. The Short Name value should be used in all reports, queries and programs to refer to a given field as this value will not change from one version of the specifications to another. SeqNo: An arbitrary number (Sequence Number) used for ordering the fields within a specific version of the data specifications. The ordering of the numbers is set to loosely follow the order in which the fields appear in the DCF. The SeqNo value for one field can change from one version of the specifications to the next. The values, therefore, should never be used in any reports, queries or programs to refer to a specific field.
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Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, v2.61 Training Manual
Guide to Using Data Collection Form and Data Specifications
Core: This field contains a value of Yes or No to define whether or not the field should be available to the users for data entry. These values have the following meanings: • Yes – Field must be available to the users for entering data for records following this version of the data specifications and the field must be included in the data files exported for submission to the STS Data Warehouse. • No – Field is not required to be available to the users for entering data for records this version of the data specifications. Whether or not the field is included in data files exported for submission to the STS Data Warehouse depends on what other data versions are being included in the data extracted. Fields defined with Core = No are in the specifications only to be able to express that the field was being collected in the previous version of the specifications, but is no longer being collected. A field defined in this way in one version of the specifications, will not appear at all in the subsequent version. Harvest: This field contains a value of Yes, No, or Optional to define whether or not the data for this field is included in the export file submitted to the STS Data Warehouse. The values for this field have the following meanings: • Yes – Data from this field must be included in the data file for all records following this version of the data specifications. • No – Data from this field must not be included in the data file for all records following this version of the data specifications. • Optional – The individual users must determine whether or not the data from this field is included in the data file. Unless specifically prohibited by state or institutional guidelines, these data should be included in the export. By default, this should be treated as a Yes. The user must explicitly denote when exporting the data that they do not want the data for this field included. Definition: The official clinical definition of the field. Harvest Coding: The numerical code that is assigned to each option in the valid data. These are the values that are used in the exported data file that is submitted to the STS Data Warehouse Valid Data: The values that can be accepted for the specified field. This can be a list of values or a numeric range. Usual Range: The range of values that are expected to be entered in most instances. Format: The format in which the field values should be collected, such as integer, real values, text, date, etc. In some instances, additional information is provided to describe the expected values, such as number of characters or number of decimal places. Data Source: This field defines how the data is entered into the field. In some instances, there is more than one option available, such as “User or Calculated”. • User – The user enters the value, otherwise it is left blank. • Automatic – The vendor software automatically inserts a value for every record. This is usually assigned to administrative fields that must contain a value, such as the DataVrsn field. • Calculated – The value is calculated by the software based on values entered in other fields in the record, such as the Risk Model fields. • Lookup – the software automatically inserts a value after looking up the information kept in a table maintained by the user, such as HospStat.
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Adult Cardiac Surgery Database, v2.61 Training Manual
Guide to Using Data Collection Form and Data Specifications
ACCField: This field indicates whether or not the definition and harvest coding of this field maps to a similar field in the 2007 revised American college of Cardiology (ACC) NCDR-ACTION and/or CathPCI data specifications. This file will contain one of the following values: • “Not mapped” – There is no ACC field that is similar to this STS field in definition or coding. • “Mapped – Definition only” – There is an ACC field that is similar to this STS field in definition, but not coding. These two fields will have some difference (such as the time at which the value is collected) that precludes the data from being combined or stored in the database as one field. • “Mapped – Definition and coding” – there is an ACC field that is similar to this STS field in definition and coding. These two fields can be combined and stored in the database as one field. Parent Field: The “parent” field on which this field (the “child”) is dependent. The parent field must contain a value that is specified in the ParentValue field before data can be entered into this field, otherwise the field should be disabled or unavailable. ParentShortName: The STS short name of the parent field. ParentValue: The list of values that the parent field can have before this field can be available for data entry.
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