CHICAGO, Illinois – A new Vascular Medicine Registry will be launched in early 2017 by the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) and the Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM). The registry will be housed within the SVS Patient Safety Organization (SVS PSO), which was established to collect and analyze data to improve the quality of vascular care, and to do so in a neutral, de-identified environment.
This will be the first data registry to study outcomes of medical management as compared to interventional and surgical treatments.
“This is a paradigm shift from looking at procedure impact only,” said Dr. Randall R. DeMartino, a Mayo Clinic vascular surgeon and co-chair of the Vascular Medicine Registry. “This new registry will allow us to compare the full spectrum of treatment options for patients with vascular disease, in order to define the best treatment for each patient.”
The new registry allows physicians to look at the entire patient, said Dr. Michael R. Jaff, vascular medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-chair of the registry. “We can see if we have done enough to keep them healthy. We can understand in greater detail how cardiovascular risk factors are managed and how that impacts patient outcomes.”
The new registry will evaluate the treatment and outcomes of patients with carotid artery stenosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm and lower extremity peripheral artery disease. For these conditions, the registry will focus on non-operative medical management approaches — identifying optimal medication and dosages, evaluating best methods for secondary prevention (e.g., blood pressure, lipid control) and assessing the need for subsequent interventional treatment
The new registry will not just track clinical outcomes, which provides crucial information for providers and researchers, but will provide useful information for patient decision-making as well. Practitioners will need to follow patients for at least one year to determine the success of medical treatment, and those visits could also reveal additional, hidden conditions.
“Long-term follow-up is a mechanism for maintaining a connection and providing good preventive care,” said Dr. DeMartino. “Vascular specialists are well known for developing long-term relationships with their patients, but this will expand the practice and provide practical guidance on the advantages of medical versus interventional or surgical care.”
After the registry begins enrollment, SVS PSO leaders anticipate that it will have comprehensive patient tracking data within one to two years. The new vascular medicine registry is the latest SVS PSO project by the Society for Vascular Surgery, which provides international leadership in vascular clinical practice and research.
In addition to surgeons, registry providers will include family practitioners, internists, non-surgical interventionists and other clinical practitioners who treat vascular patients.
“We expect that over the long run we will see more physician specialties working together and sharing information on patient management,” Dr. Jaff said. “Right now, a vascular surgeon may require input about the ongoing medications, such as statins, that their patients are taking long term, and internists may need to learn more about vascular surgical outcomes.”
The SVS PSO is the foundational component of the SVS Vascular Quality Initiative (SVS VQI), which is a joint venture of the SVS PSO and technical partner, M2S, Inc. ## The Society for Vascular Surgery Patient Safety Organization (SVS PSO) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the SVS, and provides oversight of data-sharing arrangements, key outcome and quality measures and dissemination of information to participating providers. Collaborative organizations include the American Venous Forum and the Society for Vascular Medicine. In addition, the PSO has partnered with M2S to provide secure, cloud-based data management.
The Vascular Quality Initiative, a joint venture of the Society for Vascular Surgery and M2S Inc., collects and analyzes data to improve the quality of vascular care. Currently, VQI has more than 370 facilities and 2,800 physicians participating, and more than 270,000 vascular procedures reported. The VQI includes 12 procedure-based registries and is a collaboration between 17 regional groups that use a Patient Safety Organization and the M2S PATHWAYS cloud-based system.
The Society for Vascular Surgery® (SVS) is a 5,600-member, not-for-profit professional medical society, composed primarily of specialty-trained vascular surgeons, which seeks to advance excellence and innovation in vascular health through education, advocacy, research and public awareness. The Society is based in Chicago, Illinois. The Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM) is a professional organization founded in 1989 to improve the integration of vascular biological advances into medical practice, and to maintain high standards of clinical vascular medicine. The Society is distinguished by its emphasis on clinical approaches to vascular disorders.