Vascular Surgery Earns Top Rating for Quality Initiative

Vascular Surgery is the only program in the state to receive a three-star rating – the highest score – in the Society of Vascular Surgery Vascular Quality Initiative. The rating recognizes the division’s activity in the Registry Participation Program and this is the third year in a row URMC has demonstrated this level of excellence. 

The VQI program works to improve patient safety and the quality of vascular care by providing web-based collection, aggregation and analysis of clinical data submitted to 12 registries for all patients undergoing specific vascular treatments.

The team has led the national with point-of-care data collection using eRecord to ensure fidelity and accuracy of patient and outcome data. Support from the Medical Center Information Services Department, SVS VQI and EPIC have allowed for the creation of standardized data elements, which are now being deployed at a national level.

“We have worked hard to emphasize a surgeon-driven model, which ensures that the actionable data and outcomes can be viewed in real time using both SVS VQI analytic software and our own eRecord registry. We are at the point wherein a surgeon can use these outcomes to guide the shared decision-making process when working with individual patients,” said Michael Stoner, M.D., Chief of Vascular Surgery. The team released all data elements and structured notes to the EPIC community via UserWeb.

Having a large volume of cases in the registry also has a very positive impact on the training of Vascular Surgery residents and fellows.

“All surgical training programs discuss patient outcomes and complications as part of their educational curriculum. High-quality SVS VQI data allows us to examine an individual patient’s outcomes within the context of other cases done at the Medical Center and benchmark versus regional and national groups,” said Jennifer Ellis, M.D., associate professor and Quality Director for the division. These data are used to drive and monitor process improvement projects driven by multidisciplinary teams.

To earn three stars, the team demonstrated extensive commitment to tracking and reporting patient outcomes and participated in regional quality meetings. The national quality program divides participants into geographic regions to facilitate communication and local collaboration towards quality and process improvement. URMC is part of the Vascular Study Group of Greater New York and a volume leader in the state for several procedure-based modules.