New Varicose Vein Registry Launched

The Society for Vascular Surgery Patient Safety Organization® and the American Venous Forum® launch new VQI® Varicose Vein Registry™
Chicago, IL and West Lebanon, NH Jan 13, 2015 – The American Venous Forum (AVF) and the Society for Vascular Surgery Patient Safety Organization (SVS PSO) have collaborated to launch a new Varicose Vein Registry® (VVR) for the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI). Participants will have access to user-customized reports that include anonymous benchmark comparison with other regional and national centers, and participation in regional quality group meetings to develop quality improvement projects. The SVS PSO Venous Quality Committee will analyze and compare different treatment options for differing varicose vein characteristics, in order to make recommendations regarding optimal patient and treatment selection. In addition, M2S Inc, the technology partner for the VQI, is working with vendors of EMR software systems to develop integration of their system with the VQI VVR to optimize data entry efficiency. The Registry already has contracts with 13 institutions, including both hospitals and outpatient vein centers.
Participation in the VQI allows PQRS reporting and meets the needs for maintenance of board certification and IAC vein center accreditation. The VQI has also partnered with the FDA and industry to provide a registry-based method to perform post-approval surveillance of new medical devices. The VQI VVR will allow evaluation of new treatment modalities for varicose veins, which will benefit patients, physicians, the FDA, and manufacturers of devices used to treat varicose veins.
The AVF Varicose Vein Steering Committee has developed the VQI VVR, and Chairman Jose Almeida, M.D., commented: “We need an efficient, manageable, low-cost registry that can be used by every vein center in the U.S. to meet the needs of IAC accreditation. It should interface with our vein center electronic record so we can avoid double data entry, but have access to benchmark reporting that allows us to improve our practice.”
The VVR incorporates the required CEAP and VCSS measures, and allows users to easily record different treatment modalities, including specific devices used for treatment. Committee member Thomas Wakefield, M.D., summarizes the effort: “We designed an efficient, practical registry to capture key data, including patient reported outcomes and complications. It will allow us to compare the efficacy of different treatment types and provide vein centers the data they need to improve outcomes and meet regulatory requirements.”
The VQI now includes 320 centers in 46 states, organized into 18 regional quality groups. This rapid growth has been due to a user-friendly system for data entry and reporting, created by M2S, Inc., and the availability of granular comparative data, including risk adjusted outcome and efficiency measures, which provide actionable information not otherwise available to participating centers. Importantly, VQI is available to any physician specialty type who performs procedures in a center, and has become a representative, multi-specialty group. The American Venous Forum, the Society for Interventional Radiology and the Society for Vascular Medicine endorse the VQI.