Louisville, KY. – The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded the Baptist Health Louisville vascular program three stars for its active participation in the Registry Participation Program.  Less than 15% of the nearly 800 programs participating are able to achieve this top score. 

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. Baptist Louisville began working with the program in 2018.

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 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. 

“Data provided by VQI helps our vascular care team measure the effectiveness of our programs and make critical decisions on how we can improve long-term care for our patients,” Bradley Thomas, MD of Surgical Care Associates at Baptist Health Louisville said.

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 Baptist Louisville 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
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.