Varicose Vein Registry Launched for the Vascular Quality Initiative

January 26, 2015—The American Venous Forum (AVF) and the Society for Vascular Surgery Patient Safety Organization (SVS PSO) announced the launch of the Varicose Vein Registry (VVR) for the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI). Launched in 2011, VQI includes 320 centers in 46 states, organized into 18 regional quality groups. The AVF, the Society for Interventional Radiology, and the Society for Vascular Medicine endorse the VQI.

VVR 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. is working with vendors of electronic medical record (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 hospitals and outpatient vein centers.

According to AVF and the SVS PSO, participation in the VQI allows physician quality reporting system (PQRS) reporting and meets the needs for maintenance of board certification and Intersocietal Accreditation Committee (IAC) vein center accreditation.

The VQI has also partnered with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and industry to provide a registry-based method to perform postapproval 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.

Jose Almeida, MD, serves as Chairman of the AVF Varicose Vein Steering Committee, which developed the VQI VVR. In the announcement, Dr. Almeida commented, “We need an efficient, manageable, low-cost registry that can be used by every vein center in the United States 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 Clinical-Etiology-Anatomy-Pathophysiology (CEAP) and Venous Clinical Severity Score (VCSS) measures, and allows users to easily record different treatment modalities, including specific devices used for treatment. This effort was summarized in the press release by committee member Thomas Wakefield, MD. Dr. Wakefield stated, “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.”