Doctor-prescribed and -supervised exercise therapy is going digital. The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) will begin piloting a ground-breaking app for Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET), for at-home use by patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD).

ROSEMONT, Ill., August 11, 2020 – The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has announced its 2020-21 officers, including two elected via virtual voting for the first time in the organization’s history. Members were also able to select from a choice of candidates, with 482 eligible members – or 15.6 percent – casting votes for vice president and treasurer.

John Calhoon, MD, FACS, STS is a cardiothoracic surgeon at the University of Texas Health Center at San Antonio. In the San Antonio Express-News, he explained why Congress needs to prevent the upcoming Medicare payment cuts or else America’s most vulnerable patients will lose access to high quality and timely surgical care.

A publication in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, first presented as a paper at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery and posted in the December 2019 issue of the Journal of Vascular Surgery has been criticized for its methodology and the implicit bias found in its analysis.

Dear Colleagues,  

This week's planned Town Hall on branding and valuation resources for our members has been delayed by a few weeks to provide an opportunity for the Society to come together and address the emergent issue of professionalism.  

In the aftermath of public discourse regarding an article in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, now retracted, I felt it was important to lead a conversation on professionalism with our members with the help of a diverse panel of discussants. 

BY BETH BALES

Effective January 2021, the ACC’S NCDR will collaborate with the SVS Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) to support and steer a single vascular registry. SVS will operate the registry, creating a cobranded VQI program that will be a unique, comprehensive resource for measuring and improving the care provided to a growing population of patients with vascular diseases.

BY BETH BALES

Don’t leave reimbursement money on the table. Plan to attend—or have a staff member or two attend—the 2020 Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Coding and Reimbursement Workshop. This year’s workshop, with an optional session on evaluation and management (EM) codes, will be held Friday and Saturday, Sept. 25 and 26, at the Hyatt Rosemont in Rosemont, Illinois, near O’Hare International Airport.

The optional session will be from 8 a.m. to noon Sept. 25, with the main workshop set for 1 to 5 p.m. Sept. 25 and from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 26.

BY BETH BALES AND BRYAN KAY

BY BETH BALES

Expanding the Board provides for broader representation while the three-year term for the chair provides continuity, said Michel S. Makaroun, MD, whose term as chair ended June 20. The changes as a whole “position the SVS Foundation Board for further growth,” he said.

In addition, the immediate past president of the SVS will no longer succeed to the chair position, but will serve on the Foundation board.

BY BRYAN KAY

Lumsden gave the address—entitled “TeleWhat? Beyond the office: How remote support systems will transform education, case support and care delivery”—on the second day of SVS ONLINE, on June 23, as the digital alternative to the canceled Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) moved onto Scientific Session 2 and its first Invited Session, “American Venous Forum Debates 2020: Are DVT & PE interventions unnecessary?”