Quality Care and Outcomes The development of regional systems of UA/NSTEMI care is a matter of utmost importance.196,198,199 This includes encouraging the participation of key stakeholders in collaborative efforts to evaluate care using standardized performance and quality- improvement measures, such as those endorsed by the ACC and the AHA for UN/NSTEMI.199 Standardized quality-of-care data registries designed to track and measure outcomes, complica- tions, and adherence to evidence-based processes of care for UA/NSTEMI are also critical: programs such as the NCDR (National Cardiovascular Data Registry) ACTION Registry- GWTG, the AHA s Get With The Guidelines (GWTG) quality- improvement program, and those performance-measurement systems required by The Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.194,201 203 More recently, the AHA has promoted its Mission: Lifeline initiative, which was developed to encourage closer cooperation and trust among prehospital emergency services personnel and cardiac care professionals.194 The evaluation of UA/NSTEMI care delivery across traditional care-delivery boundaries with these tools and other resources is imperative to identify systems problems and enable the application of modern quality-improvement methods, such as Six Sigma, to make necessary improve- ments.195,197,200,204 The quality-improvement data coming from registries like the ACTION-GTWG may prove pivotal in ad- dressing opportunities for quality improvement at the local, regional, and national level, including the elimination of health- care disparities and conduct of comparative effectiveness research. President and Staff American College of Cardiology Foundation William A. Zoghbi, MD, FACC, President Thomas E. Arend, Jr, Esq, CAE, Interim Chief Staff Officer William J. Oetgen, MD, MBA, FACC, Senior Vice President, Science and Quality Charlene May, Senior Director, Science and Clinical Policy American College of Cardiology Foundation/American Heart Association Lisa Bradfield, CAE, Director, Science and Clinical Policy Sue Keller, BSN, MPH, Senior Specialist, Evidence-Based Medicine Ezaldeen Ramadhan III, Specialist, Science and Clinical Policy American Heart Association Gordon F. Tomaselli, MD, FAHA, President Nancy Brown, Chief Executive Officer Rose Marie Robertson, MD, FAHA, Chief Science Officer Gayle R. Whitman, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, Senior Vice President, Office of Science Operations Judy L. Bezanson, DSN, RN, CNS-MS, FAHA, Science and Medicine Advisor, Office of Science Operations Jody Hundley, Production Manager, Scientific Publications, Office of Science Operations References 1. 