COAP collects clinical data abstracted from medical records for every percutaneous cardiac intervention (PCI) and adult cardiac surgery (ACS) performed in our member hospitals. To reduce cost burdens on hospitals, COAP has aligned data collection with the American College of Cardiology for  PCI data, and with the Society of Thoracic Surgeons for adult cardiac surgery data. This clinical data is analyzed to identify key metrics with significant variation across the region, particularly in metrics with high patient impact. These metrics, COAP Quality Indicators, are tracked, publicly reported, and targeted for regional quality improvement. A list of current Quality Indicators can be found here. 

To support regional quality improvement, COAP identifies high performing providers and invites them to share their practices at in-person and web based meetings.

With data at the core of all improvement efforts, COAP helps ensure data integrity through monthly support calls for data abstractors, and by connecting abstractors to outside expertise and resources. 

Complying with COAP Quality Standards

Hospitals are in full compliance with COAP Quality Standards if they meet these minimum criteria: They participate in COAP, are timely with data submissions, submit quality improvement action plans for any metric for which they were a negative outlier (defined as performing two or more standard deviations worse than the COAP average for that evaluation year and for the prior 3 year average) and, if applicable, have made significant progress on those action plans for which they were an outlier the prior evaluation period.