Direct Data Submission FAQ

Legacy Data Submission requires users to manually upload files to the TQIP Data Center. With Direct Data Submission, data is submitted directly from your registry product if your product is compatible. After submission, the remaining steps in the process are the same as the Legacy Data Submission process.

Your registry vendor will notify ACS on your site’s behalf if your site is enrolled. If you are unsure of your site’s enrollment status, please contact your registry vendor for confirmation.

It is not mandatory to use Direct Data Submission. If your site would like to continue to use the Legacy Data Submission method, that option remains available and the process has not changed.

Your registry vendor has been informed of the change and will provide directions on how to send data directly from your registry product to the Data Center.

The new data submission process will support trauma centers sending the current admission year and the two previous years.

There is no required minimum or maximum number of patients required for each submission. Submissions may include any number of records, whether the upload contains one patient or several hundred.

Submission frequency is determined by each facility. Facilities may choose to submit data for individual patients as cases occur or submit records in bulk at a later time. Both approaches are acceptable.

With Call For Data Windows, users must wait for a submission window to open up each month to submit their data. With Call For Data Deadlines, users may submit data at any time during the quarter, provided submission occurs before the applicable Call for Data Deadline. This new expanded time frame for submitting data is available to all users regardless of what method of data submission they use.

If your uploads are not appearing in the Data Center, it is most likely because your vendor has not enrolled you as a Direct Data Submission user. Please reach out to your registry vendor and they will be able to assist in initiating the enrollment process.

No, Direct Data Submission is a method for sending data to us regardless of what program you participate in (TQIP, Annual Call for Data, etc.), so long as you are enrolled and your registry product is compatible with the Direct Data Submission process.

We ask that participants complete the Patient Deactivation Request form when previously submitted patients no longer meet the NTDB Inclusion Criteria. Once the request is received and eligibility is confirmed, ACS will deactivate the patient record and notify the submitter via email.

If corrections need to be made to a record, you can resubmit a corrected version of that record using the Direct Data Submission model. So long as the resubmitted records have the same patient ID and admission year combination in the file, the existing records will be updated with the new information. Updates can be confirmed by reviewing the Validation Summary Report.

Yes, these reports will continue to be available for your review. However, with this new process your registry will receive any validation errors directly, so you can make corrections right away in your registry product.

This should lessen the need to view the Validation Summary Report in the Data Center. In addition, we are going to be releasing two news reports on the Data Center that should supplement this new process. We will have more information on these new reports soon. They’ll serve as an alternative to the submission frequency report, allowing you to view data across multiple submissions and drill down into individual patients if needed.

Yes. After each submission, you will receive an Upload History Report indicating whether the file was successfully uploaded, as well as a Validation Summary Report highlighting any validation flags.

Currently, there are no plans to retire the Legacy Upload model. If this were to change, we would communicate with our users well in advance to ensure facilities have ample time to prepare for and complete the transition.