Metrics / Measures
Journal Articles: In this issue of Heart Rhythm Journal we continue this quarterly feature highlighting important developments and advances in quality improvement or systems-based practice improvement in the delivery of heart rhythm care. This issue focuses on quality improvement surrounding atrial fibrillation (AF) and highlights some opportunities for measuring, reporting, and improving the quality of heart rhythm care for AF.
Journal Articles: Understanding the quality of atrial fibrillation (AF) care delivery is critically important for identifying care gaps, targeting improvement efforts, and guiding resource allocation. In this effort, several professional societies have defined a series of AF quality indicators (QIs) that can be used to monitor adherence to evidence-based processes and AF-related outcomes. In Canada, this effort has been led by the Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS). On behalf of the CCS AF QI Working Group, in this issue of Heart Rhythm Journal, we summarize our process for defining and measuring AF QIs, present 2 recent publications reporting national data on key AF Qis, and discuss challenges encountered and future directions.
The purpose of this project was to develop a minimum set of standardized outcome measures that could be collected in AF patient registries and clinical practice.