Introduction
This section of the British Cardiovascular Intervention Society (BCIS) web site is dedicated to providing information for patients about percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) as a treatment for heart disease. These web pages provide some background about coronary heart disease and treatment by interventional techniques, in addition to information about the way in which we assess the quality of PCI care being provided.
For many years the BCIS audit program has published information about the practice of interventional cardiology based on assessment of each hospital’s activity and performance. These analyses can be seen in the audit sections of this web site.
This is the third year that we also publish an analysis of each individual consultant PCI operator’s activity and outcomes. This year we present additional analyses and show both consultant operator and PCI hospital data. Regular review of procedural outcomes is essential to assure, improve and maintain high standards of care for patients. The BCIS considers transparent reporting of outcome data after procedures to be a fundamental part of good clinical practice.
Interpretation of these data, however, is not always intuitive. It is therefore important that appropriate context and explanation are provided to try to help patients and healthcare professionals to navigate this complex area. Both the strengths and the limitations of conclusions that can be drawn need to be understood. Clinicians may appear to have better or worse outcomes for a variety of reasons, many of which are unrelated to the individual operators and their teams.
We hope that the information contained in these pages will clarify some of the issues regarding the analyses displayed on this web site.
