The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded Buffalo General Medical Center/Gates Vascular Institute (BGMC/GVI) three stars – the highest number of stars an organization can achieve – for its active participation in the Registry Participation Program.
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. They can also use their data to support quality improvement initiatives.
“We are proud of our vascular care team for this achievement. They are committed to using data to measure the effectiveness of our programs and ultimately improve our long-term patient care and outcomes,” said Beth Hughes, president of BGMC/GVI and Long Term Care.
“Hard-working, dedicated organizations such as BGMC/GVI 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.’”
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 health care.