New Vascular Medicine Registry to Be Launched by SVS and SVM

December 7, 2016—The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) and the Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM) announced the that a new Vascular Medicine Registry will be launched in early 2017. The registry will be housed within the SVS Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which was established to collect and analyze data to improve the quality of vascular care and to do so in a neutral, de-identified environment. The SVS PSO is the foundational component of the SVS Vascular Quality Initiative, which is a joint venture of the SVS PSO and its technical partner, M2S, Inc.

According to the societies, this will be the first data registry to study outcomes of medical management compared to interventional and surgical treatments. The Vascular Medicine Registry will be led by Co-Chairs Randall R. DeMartino, MD, and Michael R. Jaff, DO. Dr. DeMartino is a vascular surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and Dr. Jaff is a vascular medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

In the announcement, Dr. DeMartino commented, “This is a paradigm shift from looking at procedure impact only. This new registry will allow us to compare the full spectrum of treatment options for patients with vascular disease in order to define the best treatment for each patient.”

Dr. Jaff noted that the new registry allows physicians to look at the entire patient. He explained, “We can see if we have done enough to keep them healthy. We can understand in greater detail how cardiovascular risk factors are managed and how that impacts patient outcomes.”

The societies stated that the new registry will evaluate the treatment and outcomes of patients with carotid artery stenosis, abdominal aortic aneurysm, and lower extremity peripheral artery disease. For these conditions, the registry will focus on nonoperative medical management approaches by identifying optimal medication and dosages, evaluating best methods for secondary prevention (eg, blood pressure, lipid control), and assessing the need for subsequent interventional treatment.

In addition to tracking clinical outcomes, which provides crucial information for providers and researchers, the registry will offer useful information for patient decision making. Practitioners will need to follow patients for at least 1 year to determine the success of medical treatment, and those visits could also reveal additional hidden conditions.

Dr. DeMartino observed, “Long-term follow-up is a mechanism for maintaining a connection and providing good preventive care. Vascular specialists are well known for developing long-term relationships with their patients, but this will expand the practice and provide practical guidance on the advantages of medical versus interventional or surgical care.”

After the registry begins enrollment, SVS PSO leaders anticipate that it will have comprehensive patient tracking data within 1 to 2 years. 

In addition to surgeons, registry providers will include family practitioners, internists, nonsurgical interventionists, and other clinical practitioners who treat vascular patients. Dr. Jaff commented, “We expect that over the long run we will see more physician specialties working together and sharing information on patient management. Right now, a vascular surgeon may require input about the ongoing medications, such as statins, that their patients are taking long-term, and internists may need to learn more about vascular surgical outcomes.”