Dr. Elliott Fisher to Challenge Interventional Cardiologists to be “Agents of Change” at SCAI 2012 Town Hall Meeting

Conference Attendees Will Discuss Strategies to Reduce Costs, Eliminate Waste
and Ensure Appropriate Use

LAS VEGAS (April 25, 2012) — Interventional cardiologists can and should lead efforts to improve quality, cut costs and ensure appropriate use of procedures. Elliott Fisher, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Dartmouth, an internationally recognized expert on variations in health system performance and one of the originators of the concept of accountable care organizations, will challenge the interventional cardiology community to accomplish these and other goals at a town hall meeting during the 2012 Scientific Sessions of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) in Las Vegas, Nev. His keynote address, “Why Interventional Cardiology Needs to be a Change Leader,” will set the stage for an interactive discussion with cardiologists attending the conference.

In his keynote address, Dr. Fisher will speak about the need for payment reform, the future of health care, why these changes are critical now and how interventional cardiologists can help lead the successful transformation of the U.S. healthcare system.

“Our health system simply cannot afford to continue the same patterns and models of care delivery that we have relied on in decades past,” said Dr. Fisher. “As physicians, we need to be leading the effort to put the systems in place that will result in both improved patient care and reduced costs. As a specialty, interventional cardiology has led the way in evidence-based care and quality improvement. I intend to deliver a message of challenge, hope and choice — and by that I mean, face up to our current fiscal predicament, realize this is a moment of opportunity and make the choice to fix it. If interventional cardiologists do this, they will be demonstrating to the larger healthcare community how these things can be done.”

An open discussion about the state of interventional cardiology will follow the keynote, featuring a panel of leading interventional cardiologists. Town hall faculty will share specific examples of how interventional cardiologists can continue their efforts to improve safety and quality through quality improvement initiatives, such as:

• Lessons from recent cases of alleged inappropriate and overuse of stenting in Maryland, presented by Mark Turco, MD, FSCAI

• Cath lab accreditation to promote quality improvement in interventional cardiology, presented by Accreditation for Cardiovascular Excellence (ACE) Chief Medical Officer Bonnie Weiner, MD, FSCAI

• SCAI’s Quality Improvement Toolkit (QIT), featuring guidelines and tools focused on peer-review conferences, random case selection, national database participation, pre-procedure checklists and other tools to aid in continuous quality improvement, presented by Jeffrey Marshall, MD, FSCAI

• SCAI’s appropriate use criteria (AUC) smartphone application, providing interventional cardiologists easy access to relevant guidelines and the ability to instantaneously calculate “appropriateness,” presented by Kalon Ho, MD, FSCAI

“Already the interventional cardiology community is leading important initiatives aimed at improving the quality of care. The vast majority of us are deeply committed to doing the right thing for our patients,” said SCAI 2012 Program Co-Director Kenneth Rosenfield, MD, FSCAI. “Now we need all interventional cardiologists to join together in this mission. We have the opportunity to make a significant impact on cost and value in our profession and in the larger healthcare system.”

An interactive discussion with attendees will follow the presentations. The Town Hall session will take place Friday, May 11, 2012 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. (Pacific Time).

About SCAI
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions is a 4,000-member professional organization representing invasive and interventional cardiologists in approximately 70 nations. SCAI's mission is to promote excellence in invasive and interventional cardiovascular medicine through physician education and representation, and advancement of quality standards to enhance patient care. SCAI's patient and physician education program, Seconds Count, offers comprehensive information about cardiovascular disease. For more information about SCAI and Seconds Count, visit www.scai.org [1] or www.SecondsCount.org [2].