ProMedica Toledo Hospital Earns Three Stars in the Vascular Quality Initiative Registry Participation Award Program

The Society for Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI) has awarded ProMedica Toledo Hospital 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.

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 670,000 vascular procedures performed in the U.S. and 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.

“Our team uses VQI data for all of our quality improvement projects. It is an extremely valuable tool that provides real-time feedback on the impact of our programs,” said Gregory Kasper, MD, FACS, MBA, vice president of medical affairs – metro region at ProMedica and president and chief medical officer of Jobst Vascular Institute at ProMedica Toledo Hospital. “Educationally, we use VQI for continued faculty development and feedback for our trainees. I can’t imagine trying to run a service line without this type of ongoing outcomes assessment.”

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 the Jobst Vascular Institute at ProMedica Toledo Hospital 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.’”