Development of an annually updated Japanese national clinical database for chest surgery in 2014

OBJECTIVES A national clinical database (NCD) adopted an "Internet-based collection" in 2011. An NCD specializing in chest surgery was launched based on the NCD system in 2014. The system was linked to the board certification as the second level in the hierarchy of the specialty of chest surgery and accreditation of educational institutions for chest surgery. Here, we report the status of the NCD for chest surgery in 2014 and clarified its registration rate and its accuracy. METHODS Chest surgeries undertaken in Japan since January 1st, 2014 until the end of the same year were registered through an Internet-based system until April 8th, 2015. The registration rate was compared with the annual survey conducted by the Japanese Association for Thoracic Surgery (JATS) from 2011 to 2014. The rate of accurate inputting was measured by an Internet-based audit in reference to 563 anonymous operative notes of patients presented by 106 chest surgeons at the time of renewal for board certification for chest surgery. RESULTS A total of 88,112 chest-surgical procedures were registered from 1000 chest surgery units (CSUs). Distribution of procedures by thoracic disease was almost identical to that of the annual survey conducted by JATS. However, the NCD had 4260 more registered procedures compared with the annual survey. The Internet-based audit showed that inter-rater agreement between Internet-based data and operative notes in any item was >94 %. CONCLUSIONS The NCD system can sustainably provide important and up-to-date information relating to preoperative status, oncology, and best practice for chest surgery in Japan.