Clinical performance indicators for percutaneous coronary intervention.

Quality indicators in cardiology can be used to guide performance at a patient level, or at an organizational level. To positively influence adherence to performance guidelines, policymakers have to ensure that employees are involved in the development of guidelines and indicators. The first phase for selecting performance measures is creating a set of performance indicators. The aim of this study was to identify performance indicators with a high degree of consensus among professionals in daily practice for interventional cardiology. Each of the 50 predefined performance indicators was rated by 17 cardiologists and 17 head nurses (one from each participating center) on a 5-point scale. The cluster of indicators with the highest scores was resubmitted to the participants of the first phase for verification. After the second phase, performance indicators with >90% positive score for inclusion were qualified as key performance indicator (KPI). In the first phase, 24 of 34 response forms were returned (71%). Performance indicators with the highest overall mean scores were complications (4.71), in-hospital delay for patients with acute myocardial infarction (4.67), mortality (4.63), technical result (4.42), and patient satisfaction (4.38). The scores of cardiologists and nurses showed similar patterns. Nineteen indicators were selected for verification. After the second phase, 8 indicators qualified as KPI: complications, data flow, in-hospital delay, frequency of heart team meetings, number of procedures per center, mortality, restenosis rate, and use of protocols. The 8 KPI are both quantifiable and aimed at the catheterization laboratory as a unit.