After nearly six months of preliminary work, the APM Task Force now is focusing on developing a vascular-specific Advanced Alternative Payment Model.

The simple introduction of a color-coded card has helped two Texas facilities improve discharge medication compliance and documentation, potentially improving patient outcomes.

The SVS Executive Board has established a task force charged with exploring the potential for developing a vascular certification program for inpatient and outpatient vascular care settings.

The 2017 Vascular Annual Meeting piled on the events: six postgraduate courses, and only time to attend three. Concurrent sessions that – true to their name – were held at the same time. Ditto with breakfast sessions.

Other members of the 2017-2018 Executive Committee include:

Dr. Michel Makaroun, president-elect

Spending an entire day or so learning about the history of the Medicare and Medicaid programs? Fascinating, said Dr. Matthew Sideman, chair of the SVS Coding and Reimbursement Committee.

Does the anemic – but high cardiac risk – patient need a blood transfusion, or not?

SVS member Dr. Panos Kougias is leading a study on the best transfusion approach when treating patients at high cardiac risk who become anemic postoperatively.

This month’s leadership spotlight is on Joseph L. Mills, MD, FACS, Professor and Chief of Vascular Surgery and Endovascular Therapy at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. Dr. Mills has been President of the Peripheral Vascular Surgery Society (now VESS), Western Vascular Society, and the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery (APDVS). He has a strong interest in education and is a past-chair of the Vascular Surgery Board (VSB) of the American Board of Surgery (ABS), and a member of the Surgery Residency Review Committee (RRC) of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education. We discussed his approach to leadership from the viewpoint of the Kouzes/Posner trait of ‘Encouraging the Heart.’

Two disability insurance plans offered to SVS members The famous Lloyd’s of London has insured hands (the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards), legs (Betty Grable and others), chest hair (Welsh crooner Tom Jones), nose (Jimmy Durante), tongues (Gene Simmons of Kiss and others), voice (Bruce Springstee

New evidence suggests that minimally invasive methods to ablate superficial venous reflux in patients with end-stage venous insufficiency are as effective as traditional open venous stripping.