Statewide Meetings

COAP would like to thank the125+ attendees who joined us for the 2010 Statewide Meeting, held May 24th at the Hilton Seattle Airport & Conference Center, where we were very fortunate to have two nationally-recognized speakers, in addition to several local and regional experts, for our 14th Annual meeting:

• Ralph G. Brindis, MD, MPH, FACC, FSCAI, the new President of the American College of Cardiology, spoke about new horizons in quality assessment (5MB .pdf), particularly PCI-specific applications and broader questions of the appropriateness of PCI vs. CABG for revascularization.*DISCLOSURE: Please note that slides 75-110 in Dr. Brindis’s presentation are related to work done by Prism/Health Outcomes Sciences and Dr. John Spertus. The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has a financial relationship with Prism/Health Outcomes Sciences.
• Richard L. Prager, MD, Director of the Michigan Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons Quality Initiative, discussed the crucial role of regional quality initiatives in improving quality of care and the unique approaches that the Michigan voluntary regional QI initiative has introduced to reduce mortality and improve the quality of care.

Throughout the day, the full program agenda also included:

• A discussion of current issues in reimbursement and cost considerations with Medicare contractor Dr. Dick Whitten (2MB .pdf);
• An afternoon breakout session highlighting cardiology, with sessions on both urban and rural challenges, as well as what is new in the state’s effort to champion this cause;
• An afternoon breakout session highlighting cardiac surgery, which presented results from a recent surgeon survey on risk adjustment followed by a discussion on the relationship between risk adjustment, transparency and quality initiatives;
• and opportunities to network with colleagues from across the state…

COAP would like to thank the 125+ attendees who joined us for our 2009 Annual Statewide Meeting, held May 19th at the Hilton Seattle Airport & Conference Center, where we –

• learned from Edwin Fonner, Jr. DrPH, Executive Director, The Virginia Cardiac Surgery Quality Improvement Initiative, a Regional QI Program;
• learned about “Appropriate Use of Cardiovascular Technology: Can Professional Society Criteria Help Improve Care?” (~22MB .pdf) from Manesh R. Patel, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiology, Assistant Director, Cardiac Catherization Lab, Duke University Medical Center, lead author of the Report on 2009 Appropriateness Criteria for Coronary Revascularization recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology;
• heard from colleagues at UW Medical Center on their progress using data to improve quality outcomes, including their shared example of what a Hospital Dashboard could soon look like;
• discussed progress on work to increase transparency and `public reporting of quality data; and
• engaged in an open Q&A about the future of COAP!

Click here to download the agenda to see what you missed, and be sure to join us next year!

COAP would like to thank all the attendees who joined us for our 2008 Annual Statewide Meeting at the Hilton Airport & Conference Center. We are pleased to offer some selected materials and presentations for download:

• Keynote speaker, Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President, Performance Measures,National Quality Forum spoke about “Strategic Issues in Performance Measurement – Moving Towards Outcomes.”
• Program Director, Kristin Sitcov, provided a report on “COAP Audit Results and Progress” as the program works through its first ever round of fieldwork with all participating hospitals.
• Central Washington Hospital’s Amy Berkompas spoke about reducing “Door-to-Balloon Times.