The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded McLaren Bay Region three out of three stars for its active participation in the Registry Participation Program.
The mission of the SVS VQI is to improve patient safety and the quality of vascular care delivery by providing web-based collection, aggregation and analysis of clinical data submitted in registry format for all patients undergoing specific vascular treatments. The VQI operates 14 vascular registries.
Participating centers can earn up to three stars based on actions that lead to better patient care, including:
- The completeness of long-term, follow-up reporting, based on the percentage of patients for whom they have at least nine months of follow-up data
- Physician attendance at semi-annual meetings of a regional quality group
- Initiation of quality improvement activities based on VQI data
- The number of vascular registries in which the center participates
The wealth of data allows centers and providers to compare their performance to regional and national benchmarks. All centers and providers receive biannual dashboards and regular performance reports, so they can use their data to support quality improvement initiatives.
"The VQI data allows us to measure the effectiveness of our vascular service line programs and helps us to improve our long-term outcomes by strategically focusing on specific areas of need. Our results demonstrate that at McLaren Bay Region, we offer the HIGHEST QUALITY vascular care, performance and outcomes as compared to regional and even national benchmarks. We are extremely proud of this achievement,” says Nicolas J Mouawad, MD, MPH, MBA, FSVS, FRCS, FACS, RPVI, Chief of Vascular & Endovascular Surgery, McLaren Bay Region about the award.
Biannual regional meetings allow physicians of different specialties, nurses, data managers, quality officers and others to meet, share information and ideas, and learn from each other in a positive and supportive environment. Members have used VQI data to significantly improve the delivery of vascular care at local, regional, and national levels, reducing complications and expenses. Dr. Mouawad would like to specifically recognize Terri Militello, RN, BSN, Quality and Data Manager and Abstractor, McLaren Bay Region. “Terri continues to work tirelessly to abstract and compile all our hard work and quality care, and is instrumental to making sure we stay on track,” he said.
“Hard-working, dedicated organizations such as McLaren Bay Region are key to the success of the vascular registries,” said VQI Medical Director Dr. Jens Eldrup-Jorgensen. “The work we do to build and maintain the registries for researcher use is crucial to health and outcomes for vascular patients. Like the old saying says, ‘if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.’”
About the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI)
Operating under the Society for Vascular Surgery, the Vascular Quality Initiative is composed of 14 registries containing demographic, clinical, procedural and outcomes data from more than 1,000,000 vascular procedures performed nationwide and in Canada. The mission of VQI is to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness and cost of vascular healthcare.