PRESS RELEASE
The Vascular Quality Initiative® reaches a new milestone with more than 200 participating centers
West Lebanon, NH – November 28, 2012: The Vascular Quality Initiative® (VQI), designed to improve the quality of vascular healthcare has reached a significant milestone by surpassing 200 participating centers. The VQI® is a joint partnership between M2S and the Society for Vascular Surgery® (SVS) Patient Safety Organization. Reaching this mark positions the VQI® as the fastest growing quality improvement database in North America since launching in February 2011
“SVS and its members strive for the highest quality in treating vascular patients,” said Peter Gloviczki, SVS President. “VQI has experienced fast growth and continued penetration in the vascular health field because it offers the tools and mechanisms to accurately measure important quality parameters and compare them to benchmarks. Outcomes are benchmarked with peers, regionally, and then applied locally to support internal quality assurance and quality improvement projects.”
In just over a year and a half since inception, the VQI has grown exponentially in not only its number of participating centers, but also in the number of physicians collecting and entering procedural and outcome data. The database accumulates an average 3,500 procedures each month, further enhancing the value of benchmarking outcomes among providers and influencing quality improvement projects and quality research.
The regional quality groups of the VQI are fundamental for driving quality initiatives at the local level that reduce length of stay, readmissions, and complications. They also are important in fostering initiatives that can lead to best practice recommendations. Recently, the Quality Committee of the VQI, which is composed of physician representatives from each of the established regional groups, analyzed in-hospital surgical site infection after infra-inguinal bypass, finding significant variation in risk-adjusted rates across participating centers. Based on the findings of this project, the committee plans to prepare a scientific manuscript and quality recommendation.
About the Society for Vascular Surgery
The Society for Vascular Surgery® (SVS) is a not-for-profit professional medical society, composed primarily of vascular surgeons, that seeks to advance excellence and innovation in vascular health through education, advocacy, research, and public awareness. SVS is the national advocate for 4,000 specialty-trained vascular surgeons and other medical professionals who are dedicated to the prevention and cure of vascular disease. Visit its Web site at www.VascularWeb.org®.
About M2S, Inc.
M2S, the exclusive technology provider of the Vascular Quality Initiative, provides innovative technology and services for the healthcare industry to manage clinical information and utilize that information to improve the quality of patient care and reduce costs. The VQI is built on M2S’s PATHWAYS clinical data performance platform, which allows users to track, measure, and analyze clinical information, promote collaboration, objectively drive decisions, and optimize performance. M2S continually enhances the functionality of the VQI database and plans to add an amputation procedure module, along with risk-adjusted reporting capabilities in early 2013. For more information on the PATHWAYS platform utilized by the Vascular Quality Initiative, visit www.vascularqualityinitiative.org/M2S.