AF Think Tank: First Steps to the Creation of an AF Ablation Registry

More than 100 atrial fibrillation ablation experts representing the federal government, professional societies, academics and industry, met this week in Washington DC to participate in a meeting titled Safety Evaluation of Atrial Fibrillation Ablation Using a Collaborative Pan-Stakeholder Critical Path Registry Model. This “think tank” meeting was organized by the Heart Rhythm Society in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration, the American College of Cardiology, the Cardiac Safety Research Consortium (CSRC) and Duke University to discuss specific areas related to AF ablation, cardiac safety and a national registry of procedures and outcomes from the academic/clinical, regulatory, industry and reimbursement perspectives.

The two-day meeting tackled a range of issues, including:

• What are the objectives of the Registry?
• What is the size of the Registry?
• What are the data elements and procedural features that the Registry should capture?
• What is required for adequate follow-up data?
• What type of the short term and long term outcomes are we looking at?
• What are lessons learned from developing and maintaining a national registry?

The AF Think Tank was the first step in creating an AF Ablation Registry. The proceedings of this meeting will be published in a White Paper in the coming months.

View the Final Agenda (PDF, 32K) of the meeting.