In 1998, the first report of the Society of Thoracic Surgery (STS) National Congenital Heart Surgery Database defined clinical features for 18 congenital heart disease categories, providing a significant amount of important information and pinpointing database strengths and weaknesses. Following this report, the STS Congenital Heart Surgery Committee, working with the European Association of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery and the European Congenital Heart Surgeons Foundation, initiated the International Congenital Heart Surgery and Nomenclature Database Project. To standardize nomenclature and reporting strategies and establish a foundation for an international congenital heart surgery database. The project's first report was published in the Annals of Thoracic Surgery in April 2000. The current report outlines modifications to the minimal dataset and diagnosis and procedure short lists.