In the field of cardiology, large-scale clinical trials and registries have provided a wealth of data on hundreds of thousands of patients. This is especially true in the field of acute coronary syndromes (ACS), which range from ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) to non–ST-segment elevation MI (NSTEMI) to unstable angina (UA). These data have been used to define new therapies and to guide clinical care through evaluation of both the process and the quality of care and outcomes for patients with ACS.

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) recognizes the importance of using clinical data and has established a data set and launched the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDRTM), a national, voluntary registry of cardiac catheterization and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures. Several national and international registries have adopted many of the elements and definitions contained in the ACC-NCDRTM Cath Lab Module version 2.0 (1), thus providing the potential for more reliable comparisons across registries. Given the ACC’s recognition of the importance of standardizing a common lexicon for describing the clinical management and outcomes of patients with a variety of conditions, the ACC has expanded its role to include the development of clinical data standards.