Our mission statement states that "The mission of the American College of Cardiology is to advocate for quality cardiovascular care..." Quality of care is central to the mission of the ACC. Educational efforts all ultimately are meant to enhance the quality of care. And because we stand for high quality of care we gain the legitimacy that is required for effective advocacy. Quality of care efforts promote professionalism. Through education, tools, strategies and initatives, we can help our members acheive a high level of professionalism, and prepare for the future.

Quality Leadership Council

To improve communication among members about quality of care issues, we've created a Quality Leadership Council. We have used conference calls, listserv communications and face-to-face meetings to enhance the effectiveness of our two quality projects. In our GAP-VA-GWTG project, each physician champion was a member of the QLC. We hope to use this website as an interactive comunication tool to facilitate communication within the VCACC, and strengthen the effectiveness of the chapter and the QLC. If you're interested in learning more, please get involved!

Q-HIP

In 2003, the VCACC and national ACC partnered with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield to launch a hospital pay-for-performance program called Quality-In-Sights Hispital Incentive Program (Q-HIP). In this unique quality initiative, the role of the American College of Cardiology has been threefold: 1) To provide expert advice to Anthem and help create working definitions of quality cardiac care 2) To provide technical expertise regarding data collection and performance measurement of cardiac procedures 3) To establish a statewide Quality Leadership Council of cardiologists to help push this program forward. The VCACC leadership is now working with Anthem to design a physician component to this pay-for-performance program called QP3. We will discuss this at the April VCACC meeting, so don't miss this meeting.

GAP-VA-GWTG

In 2004, the VCACC, along with the national ACC partnered with the American Heart Association and the Virginia Health Quality Center to create a statewide quality improvement initiative called "GAP-Virginia Using Get With the Guidelines." In this project, we focused on 8 CMS core discharge measures for acute myocardial infarction and heart failure. This project involved the partcipation of 32 hospitals from across the state. These collaboratives have a finite lifespan, and the project has now ended. VCACC is working with VHQC to analyze the effect of this important effort and we will continue to support VHQC initiatives to improve cardiac care. In GAP-Virginia Using GWTG, the VCACC identified a physician champion in each participating hospital, and sought to encourage the use of a discharge contract for patients discharged with AMI and HF. We continue to encourage the use of the discharge contract to assure that we will deliver reliable care for AMI and CHF patients. Quality improvement continues to be a major part of the VCACC mission.

New Quality Improvement Initiatives

The national ACC is currently working on a number of new quality initiatives. ACC is partnering with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to create an initiative called "The ACC/IHI Reliable Heart Care Initiative." If your hospital participates in the IHI IMPACT network, ask them to join the Reliability Community, to participate in this initiative. Also, the national ACC is planning the roll out of GAP-D2B, a national initiative that seeks to improve door-to-balloon time. This initiative will enable us to learn from our best resources - each other. The initiative brings together the strengths of the college - GAP experience, NCDR data collection abilities, and state chapters. This initiative will be announced soon and discussed at the April VCACC meeting, so stay tuned.

Public Reporting and Pay-for-Performance

Through quality improvement initiatives VCACC helps its members prepare for the future, which will most likely include greater transparency and new payment models. Improving adherence to standardized performance measures is the surest way to prepare for these future developments. VCACC will continue to advocate to shape the future, and to help create public reporting and pay-for-performance methods that are fair, balanced, objective and predictable. VCACC leadership is currently working with Anthem to design a physician pay-for-performance program called QP3. We will discuss the details of this innovative program at the April VCACC meeting.