The Society for Vascular Surgery Vascular Quality Initiative

• Published in: Journal of vascular surgery Vol. 55; no. 5; pp. 1529 - 1537
• Main Authors: Cronenwett, Jack L., MD, Kraiss, Larry W., MD, Cambria, Richard P., MD
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Mosby, Inc 01.05.2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy; Benchmarking - standards; Biological and medical sciences; Emergency and intensive care: renal failure. Dialysis management; Humans; Intensive care medicine; Medical sciences; Outcome and Process Assessment (Health Care) - standards; Patient Safety - standards; Practice Guidelines as Topic - standards; Privacy; Program Development; Quality Improvement - standards; Regional Health Planning - standards; Registries; Risk Assessment; Societies, Medical - standards; Surgery; Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases; Treatment Outcome; United States; Vascular surgery: aorta, extremities, vena cava. Surgery of the lymphatic vessels; Vascular Surgical Procedures - adverse effects; Vascular Surgical Procedures - standards; United States; Cardiovascular disease; Surgery; Society
• ISSN: 0741-5214; 1097-6809
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jvs.2012.03.016

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) is designed to improve the quality, safety, effectiveness, and cost of vascular health care. It uses the structure of a Patient Safety Organization to permit collection of patient-identified information but protect benchmarked comparisons from legal discovery. The SVS VQI is uniquely organized as a distributed network of regional quality groups to facilitate local translation of registry data into practice change while maintaining the power of a national registry. Detailed data specific to each commonly performed open and endovascular procedure are collected, both in-hospital and at ≥1 year of follow-up. Quality measures are reported to physicians and hospitals, which allow anonymous risk-adjusted benchmarking within regions or nationally. All specialties that perform vascular procedures are included, and international participation is encouraged. This review describes the current status of the SVS VQI.