Interventional Cardiology Peer Review
In 1989, not long after the first clinical applications of balloon angioplasty in the U.S. by the inventor, Dr. Andreas Gruentzig, and with some of the experts he trained, AMF began assisting hospitals to improve quality of care in the fledgling field of interventional cardiology. AMF is well known in the cardiology community for its dedication to this specialty and is the “go to organization” with the experience and expertise to help.
To assist Cardiologists in the achievement of peripheral skills in renal and iliac stent placement, AMF gave a $600,000 grant to the Society for Cardiac Angiography and Intervention, (SCAI), through its division, the Foundation for Advanced Medical Education (FAME). This FAME grant also included The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) in the study… see their publication with the results.
AMF reviews coronary, peripheral vascular, carotid and other interventional procedures of individual practitioners or entire departments to determine:
• Appropriateness and necessity of procedures
• Compliance with the current guidelines for interventional procedures
• Responses to third party audit requests and State or Federal investigations
In performing its individually designed reviews, AMF has developed specialized processes to review thousands of cases efficiently. We have special tools to limit case selection to statistically significant audit results, and we provide a comprehensive report with suggestions for quality of care improvement regarding issues such as medical necessity, catheter choice, anticoagulant usage, patient selection and complication avoidance. Whether we provide ongoing external peer review of individual physicians or departments, we select cases at random for educational opportunities that simultaneously provide an audit that would satisfy third party challenges.
Our individual case analysis not only describes quality of care and appropriateness issues, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, serves as a guide with suggestions for technical improvement in specific areas of care provided by our physician reviewers, all of whom are the leaders and teachers in the field of interventional cardiology. Our reviews and reports are designed to assist our hospitals and physicians to achieve quality results and withstand inspection if scrutinized by a governmental entity.
We utilize the Appropriate Use Criteria Guidelines of ACCF/SCAI/STS/AATS/AHA/ASNC as a key metric in our assessments of whether survival and other health outcomes would be expected to exceed the potential negative consequences of revascularization procedures. We recommend that all labs “Let the Guidelines be Your Guide”. If you would like a copy of the complete guidelines, please call and we will forward them to you, free of charge.
Ask about our new Telementoring process.
Read an article about our foundation titled “Making Peer Review Painless” in Cath Lab Digest
