About the NHR

On behalf of the participating hospitals represented by mandated physicians, The Netherlands Heart Registration (NHR) maintains national registrations. The doctors and hospitals strive to monitor and promote quality of care in cardiology and cardiosurgery through these registrations and the mirror information provided by the NHR based on them. The mandated doctors from the hospitals give substantive direction to the quality registrations. This is done in cooperation with the scientific associations NVVC and NVT, with whom the NHR also has intensive coordination at policy level.

Mission

The NHR’s mission is to contribute to quality monitoring and improvement within cardiac care in the Netherlands. The NHR achieves this goal by maintaining quality registrations on behalf of member hospitals and in close cooperation with mandated physicians. Thanks to the integrated, high-quality and innovative quality registrations, doctors are able to monitor and improve quality of care. In this way, the interests of the cardiac patient are served.

Objective

The objective of the NHR is to contribute to maintaining and further improving quality of care; by collecting, analysing and reporting back relevant data on the treatment of patients with cardiac diseases. Supporting this objective will be:

• Reliable reports at various levels: hospital, pathology, patient etc;
• Scientific research;
• Traceability of implants;
• The strong involvement of medical specialists from the participating centres as well as the involvement of stakeholders. Consultation structures will be set up for both groups;
• Transparency for patients, cardiologists and thoracic surgeons, external regulators, health insurers and other stakeholders.

Principles

A number of principles are leading for the NHR and its cooperation with hospitals participating in its programmes.

Physician-driven
The NHR is shaped, governed and further developed by doctors.

Patiënt-driven
In consultation with patient organisations, further work is being done on how patients can be represented at different levels in the NHR, and how relevant information can be made available to patients.

Independent and in conjunction with NVVC and NVT
The NHR is developed, shaped and governed in close cooperation and with a managerial connection to the NVVC and NVT, but at the same time functions as an independent organisation.

Limited set of indicators and case-mix factors
Outcome indicators play an important role in the NHR. The balance between registration burden and the ability to make relevant analyses will be monitored ( also within the registration committees). The Value Based HealthCare (VHBC) theory will be one of the guiding principles here.

Mandatory and voluntary programmes
Both mandatory and voluntary registration programmes are included within the NHR. The mandatory programmes contain the minimum datasets as set by the NVVC and NVT. In addition, hospitals can participate in voluntary registration programmes that focus on innovation in quality improvement or research.

Three primary processes

The NHR has three primary processes and works intensively with various parties, including centres, medical specialists, the NVVC, the NVT and the Dutch Heart Foundation. The three primary processes are Registration, Innovation en Scientific Research (More information in Dutch).

Cooperating quality registries

Together with several other major quality registries, the NHR forms the Samenwerkende Kwaliteitsregistraties (SKR) platform. The joint action plan should lead to higher quality of care through better insight into relevant outcomes, reduced administrative burden and lower costs.

Governance & organisation

Board of Directors
The board of Directors consists of Prof. Dr. J.G. Maessen (Chairman), Dr. V.A.W.M. Umans en Dr. H.P.A. van Veghel.

Supervisory Board
The Supervisory Board consists of Mr G.J.H.C.M. Peeters (chairman), Dr W.J.P. van Boven, Dr J. van der Maaten, Mr G.C.C. Molenaar, Prof B.J.M. Mulder and G.T.M. Schippers MSc.

Privacy committee

The privacy committee is created and shaped by the participating hospitals in consultation with the Dutch Association of Hospitals (NVZ) and the Dutch Federation of University Medical Centres (NFU).

This committee advises, solicited and unsolicited, the registration committees on compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including the AVG and the Medical Treatment Agreement Act. The privacy committee consists of lawyers from the participating hospitals, the NVZ and the NFU. The privacy committee’s regulations can be found here (In Dutch). You can find more information, in Dutch, on data processing by NHR via the button below.

Consultation structures
Consultation structures will be designed, in strong liaison with the NHR board, to ensure policy alignment with:

• Hospitals participating in the NHR’s programmes;
• Stakeholders such as health insurers, IGZ, RVZ etc.;
• Experts in various fields.

Annual Reports

Use the buttons below to access the NHR Annual Report for 2021, 2020, 2019 and 2018 respectively, in Dutch.