IU Health Bloomington earns three stars in Vascular Quality Initiative Registry Participation Award Program

The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded Indiana University Health Bloomington 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.

The participation awards program began in 2016 to encourage active participation in the registries program and recognize the importance of that participation.

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

VQI’s registries contain demographic, clinical, procedural and outcomes data from more than 1,000,000 vascular procedures performed in the United States, Canada and Singapore. 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.

“When healthcare professionals come together to share data and lessons learned, we can better deliver value-based surgical and medical vascular care to our patients,” said Duangnapa Cuddy, DO, vascular surgeon. “All patients deserve high-quality and compassionate healthcare, and our work here could end up helping individuals across the nation.”

“Excellence in patient care matters and this award recognizes how this team values the many attributes that go into quality vascular care, including patient care continuity,” said David Peterson, MD, vascular surgeon. “We’re honored to be part of a statewide system where hospitals collaborate to improve patient experiences and outcomes today and in the future.”

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 IU Health Bloomington 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.’”