ITHACA Database

Investigational NortTHwell Atrial Fibrillation Catheter Ablation (ITHACA) Database

ITHACA captures the full AF care continuum across 655,000+ patients within one of the nation's largest and most diverse health systems. AF is encountered across multiple specialties and levels of care, and how we diagnose and manage it has critical implications for care delivery at every stage. While landmark cohorts like Framingham and ARIC and national registries have shaped our understanding of AF, ITHACA occupies a unique position, combining population-level scale, longitudinal patient outcomes, a 97% retention rate, and demographic diversity. Through a contemporary digital infrastructure integrating data across multiple data platforms, ITHACA empowers us to examine practice patterns, optimize care delivery, and generate evidence that defines the future of AF management powered by 25+ research projects and 80+ trainees.

Focus Areas

  • Antiarrhythmic Drugs

  • Anticoagulation Management

  • COVID-19

  • Pulsed Field Ablation

  • Long-Term Outcomes

  • Cardiometabolic Sydrome

  • Health Disparities

  • Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies

  • Obstructive Sleep Apnea

  • Diabetes and Cardiometabolic Disease

  • Renal

  • Women's Health

  • Arrhythmias and Clinical EP

Purpose

  • The ITHACA-Database was designed to evaluate clinical outcomes of over eight thousand patients undergoing atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation throughout the Northwell Health system to further our epidemiological understanding of the disease and address key clinical questions to optimize patient outcomes led by Principal Investigator Dr. Stavros Mountantonakis.  

Development

  • The initial phase of the database was developed through four cohorts of medical students who were trained to be expert clinical data extractors to identify baseline, procedure and follow-up outcome data. This resulted in the aggregation of over four thousand patient’s data with longitudinal follow-up for over three years. The manual extraction was necessary to merge disparate data sources. This was accomplished through in-depth training, weekly check-ins, monthly meetings, abstract review sessions, training in study design, literature review and data analysis. The team is working concurrently on over twenty projects to answer critical questions for the management of AF. The team is composed of over 50 undergraduate, medical, PhD students, internal medicine residents, cardiology fellows, electrophysiology fellows and Northwell faculty.  

Impact

  • The records of over 12,000 patients were aggregated and now serve as the analytical dataset to explore over 20 concurrent projects, which serves as the fundamental research training opportunity for a large, diverse clinical research team. The abstracts have been presented at numerous national conferences including AHA, AHA Stroke, AHA EPI, ACC and HRS. Four manuscripts have been published and five are under review at high impact peer reviewed journals. The centralized database has also improved research efficiency by streamlining data access and analysis through our ongoing partnership with the Quantitative Intelligence Team.