Stony Brook, NY, July 2019—The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded Stony Brook Medicine 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 12 vascular registries.
The participation awards program began in 2016 to encourage active participation in the registries program and recognize the importance of that participation.
Not pictured: Mohsen Bannazadeh, MD; David Landau, MD; and Kristan Probeck, NP-C.
Participating centers can earn up to three stars based on actions that can 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
VQI’s registries contain demographic, clinical, procedural and outcomes data from more than 500,000 vascular procedures performed in the U.S. and in Canada. Each record includes information from the patient’s initial hospitalization and at one-year follow-up.
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.
“Stony Brook Medicine was the first New York State institution to participate in the Vascular Quality Initiative,” Apostolos K. Tassiopoulos, MD, chief of our Vascular and Endovascular Surgery Division, and director of the Stony Brook Vascular Center. “In the past decade we have successfully utilized VQI data to improve patient care in our hospital. This second year in a row 3-star level designation is an acknowledgment of our focus on continuous improvement in the care of our patients.”
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.
“Hard-working, dedicated organizations such as Stony Brook Medicine are key to the success of the vascular registries,” said VQI Medical Director Jens Eldrup-Jorgensen, MD. “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 Stony Brook Medicine
Stony Brook Medicine integrates and elevates all of Stony Brook University’s health-related initiatives: education, research and patient care. It includes six Health Sciences schools — Dental Medicine, Health Technology and Management, Medicine, Nursing, Social Welfare, and Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — as well as Stony Brook University Hospital, Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital, Stony Brook Children’s Hospital and more than 100 community-based healthcare settings throughout Suffolk County. To learn more, visit www.stonybrookmedicine.edu.
Operating under the Society for Vascular Surgery, the Vascular Quality Initiative is composed of 12 registries containing demographic, clinical, procedural and outcomes data from more than 500,000 vascular procedures performed nationwide and in Canada. The mission of VQI is to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness and cost of vascular healthcare.
Add comment