title: Introduction to the Canadian Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Team's (CCORT) Canadian Cardiovascular Atlas project.
abstract: The Canadian Cardiovascular Outcomes Research Team's (CCORT) Canadian Cardiovascular Atlas project was developed to provide Canadians with a national report on the state of cardiovascular health and health services in Canada. Written by a group of Canada's leading experts in cardiovascular outcomes research, the CCORT cardiac Atlas will cover a wide variety of topics ranging from cardiac risk factors and cardiac mortality rates to the treatment of patients with acute myocardial infarction and congestive heart failure and the outcomes of invasive cardiac procedures across Canada. Data in the Atlas will be presented at a national, provincial and health region level. The Atlas will be published as a series of 20 articles and chapters in future issues of The Canadian Journal of Cardiology and on CCORT's web site (www.ccort.ca). The journal version of the Atlas chapters will be written for a clinical audience and will include editorials written by invited experts, whereas the web-based version of each chapter will be written for a more general audience and will include additional supplemental information (for example, interactive colour maps and tables) that cannot be included in the journal version. Material from the Journal and the web will eventually be compiled into a book that will be distributed across Canada. This article serves as an introduction to the Atlas project and describes the rationale for and objectives of the CCORT national cardiac Atlas project.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Department of Medicine, Sunnybrook and Women's College of Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Ontario. tu@ices.on.ca
authors.forename: Jack V
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Tu
authors.forename: Susan E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Brien
authors.forename: Courtney C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Louise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pilote
authors.forename: William A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Ghali
mesh_terms: D001271:Atlases as Topic; D002170:Canada / Q000453:epidemiology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D017281:Cost of Illness; D006265:Health Care Coalitions; D006296:Health Services / Q000592:standards; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D018570:Risk Assessment