NOTE: This dataset is Inactive and is no longer supported. Any historical knowledge regarding meta data or it's creation is no longer available. All known information is proved as part of this data set.
The National Cardiac Device Surveillance Program Database supports the Eastern Pacemaker Surveillance Center (EPSC) staff in its function of monitoring some 11,000 Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients who have implanted pacemakers or cardioverters. The database stores medically useful information about the patients and their pacemaker test results in order to highlight serial changes, which determine whether the pacemaker is still functioning normally, or whether the patient requires further intervention. The EPSC staff performs regular telephonic checkups, in conjunction with less frequent in-hospital clinic checkups, to determine when pacemakers need to be replaced. Patients are scheduled and called by the Pacemaker Surveillance Center, and have their electrocardiogram recorded and analyzed over the phone, using wires attached to their fingers and a VHA-supplied transmitter. Additionally, some patients are monitored via web-based downloads of their device telemetry. The Pacemaker Center also provides in-hospital clinic checkups for local Washington DC VHA pacemaker patients. All information obtained during the checkups is recorded in the EPSC Database. The database also contains records of pacemaker patients being monitored by VHA facilities east of the Mississippi and who are not being monitored directly by their respective VA medical centers. The VHA Department of Medical Services encourages local VHA medical centers to refer their patients for pacemaker follow-up monitoring to either the Eastern Surveillance Center or to the counterpart Western Surveillance Center in San Francisco, whichever is geographically appropriate. However, referral is optional. The database also maintains a registry of all VHA patients, living and deceased, who have had pacemakers implanted at, or who have been monitored by, VHA facilities. The EPSC receives information for the registry directly from the medical centers for patients that it does not monitor, totaling over 80,000 as of 2010.
