Lanham, MD – The Society for Vascular Ultrasound (SVU), the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), and Medstreaming-M2S, announce the development of the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) Vascular Ultrasound Registry. This Registry represents an expansion of the SVS VQI which will combine noninvasive (vascular ultrasound) testing data with vascular treatment and outcomes data, making it possible to analyze the relationships between diagnosis and care provided to patients with vascular disease.
The Vascular Ultrasound Registry’s initial efforts will focus on collection and analysis of data associated with the diagnosis and treatment of carotid artery disease. The development of the registry and ongoing research related activities are being led by a VQI Vascular Ultrasound Registry Task Force, chaired by Drs. David Dawson and Gregory Moneta. Groundbreaking in this registry will be the inclusion of actual ultrasound images which will make future machine analysis and learning possible from the collected registry, which currently does not exist.
It is anticipated that the registry will provide the means and an impetus to promote vascular laboratory standardization and thereby improve patient care. “Non-invasive vascular testing has evolved to the point where it is being relied upon heavily to direct patient medical management decisions”, said James Wilkinson, SVU Executive Director. “With the rapid growth and diversification in the number of medical specialties providing testing, there is a lack of standardization in the delivery of testing and the reporting of results. Targeted, yet broad based research will significantly contribute to standardization efforts.”
Fundamental to the VQI Vascular Ultrasound Registry is the ability to link technical data and images to the clinical data collected from the SVS VQI’s existing registries. “The addition of the VQI Vascular Ultrasound Registry, to the existing VQI registries, will further aid the VQI’s mission of improving vascular care by enhancing the data we can make available to our members. We are also pleased that this registry expands the reach of the VQI to include vascular technologists, sonographers and other professionals in the vascular laboratory setting. The VQI has long embraced a team-approach to care with 59% of VQI membership coming from specialties outside of Vascular Surgery, including Cardiology and Radiology,” said Dr. Jens Eldrup-Jorgensen, Medical Director of the SVS Patient Safety Organization.
A key to the success of any registry is providing means for efficient data capture. The VQI Vascular Ultrasound Registry leverages the infrastructure of the preexisting registry with linkages to ultrasound images from the vascular laboratory. “Medstreaming-M2S’s specialty based workflow solutions, along with its clinical data management system for structured data aggregation can be used for uploading of data and images,” noted Wael Elseaidy, Medstreaming-M2S CEO. Initially, only a select number of current VQI sites will participate, but Vascular Ultrasound Registry participation is expected to be broadly available in the next phase of the program, along with an increase in registry content and scope of projects.
“Unique to the VQI Vascular Ultrasound Registry is the inclusion of an imaged based registry component, which will include the actual ultrasound images acquired during patient studies. When combined with powerful analytics and potential for machine learning, we foresee opportunity to normalize ultrasound image data submitted from different sites, develop new benchmarking standards, further explore and promote utilization of all the information embedded in the images, and provide the ultrasound industry with an entirely new platform from which to conduct research and drive product development,” Elseaidy continued.
Ultimately, the Registry will provide opportunity for VQI members to improve quality and conduct additional research regarding vascular ultrasound. “The Registry will provide greater opportunity for members to participate in research, whether through contribution of data pertaining to Society sponsored research projects or their own projects utilizing Registry data, all with the overall objective of quality improvement and better patient care,” Wilkinson concluded.
About the Society for Vascular Ultrasound
Founded in 1977, the SVU is the organization representing vascular laboratory professionals. It is dedicated to the advancement of non-invasive vascular technology used in the diagnosis and treatment of vascular disease. The SVU is comprised of more than 5,700 vascular technologists, sonographers, physicians, cardiologists and other allied health professionals. For more information, visit www.svunet.org.
About the Society for Vascular Surgery
The Society for Vascular Surgery® (SVS) is a 5,800-member, not-for-profit professional medical society, composed of specialty-trained vascular surgeons and professionals, which seeks to advance excellence and innovation in vascular health through education, advocacy, research and public awareness. For more information, visit www.vascular.org.
About Medstreaming-M2S
Medstreaming-M2S is a medical informatics company specializing in workflow productivity technology, registry development and support services. To address challenges created by fragmentation of clinical data, Medstreaming created specialty-based workflow applications, which improves data workflow in electronic medical records (EMR) systems. Using this clinical workflow expertise, Medstreaming has also developed an integrated platform application that runs as an outpatient EMR, image management and reporting, and practice management workflow solution. All Medstreaming solutions act as aggregators for structuring clinical data which in turn creates powerful data service offerings for multi-purpose, web based, data mining and data analytics. Medstreaming is headquartered in Redmond, WA. For more information, visit www.medstreaming.com.
M2S, a division of Medstreaming, is a healthcare performance management solutions company that 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 Vascular Quality Initiative is built on M2S’s PATHWAYS clinical data performance platform, allowing users to track, measure, and analyze clinical information, promote collaboration, objectively drive decisions, and optimize performance. For more information, visit www.m2s.com.
About the Vascular Quality Initiative®
The Vascular Quality Initiative, a joint venture of M2S Inc. and the Society for Vascular Surgery, collects and analyzes data to improve the quality of vascular care. Currently, VQI has more than 450 facilities and 3,000 physicians participating, and 400,000+ vascular procedures reported. Its 12 clinical registries are Carotid Endarterectomy, Carotid Artery Stenting, Open AAA Repair, Endovascular AAA Repair, TEVAR and Complex EVAR, Infra-Inguinal Bypass, Supra-Inguinal Bypass, Lower Extremity Amputation, Peripheral Vascular Intervention, Hemodialysis Access, Inferior Vena Cava Filter and Varicose Vein. VQI is a collaboration between regional groups that use a Patient Safety Organization and the M2S PATHWAYS cloud-based system. For more information, visit www.vqi.org.
SVU Media Contact:
James Wilkinson
301-459-7550
SVS Media Contact:
James Wadzinski
312 334 2311
Medstreaming Media Contact:
Wael Elseaidy
wael.elseaidy@medstreaming.com
425-629-6388
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