Author Description

Since the first cardiac surgeries in a small seriesof patients in the year 1967, nowadays heartoperations are the most frequently performedsurgeries in Europe and North America. Because manyareas of cardiovascular medicine remainnondeterministic and incompletely understood,patient-oriented research activities are intended todiscover general patterns of heart disease andtreatment. In this book, a data mart architecture isproposed that advances the research in daily clinicalpractice. The applicability is demonstrated inseveral fields, including (i) generating newknowledge from observational studies, (ii) assessingpreoperative risks of adverse surgical outcomes,(iii) getting insights into historical performancechanges, (iv) monitoring surgical results, and (v)improving risk estimation.