Welcome to Lesson 4 of ACC's Transcatheter Valve Certification Overview Course. This learning activity was developed by myself. I am Liza St. Clair and I will also be narrating this presentation. The purpose of this lesson is to provide an understanding of the value and benefits of certification as your site begins the certification journey. Our objectives for this lesson is to define the goals of the ACC and Transcatheter Valve Certification, describe how achieving your certification will improve the delivery of care, patient outcomes, while also reducing costs, and lastly, identify the collection of resources that we have to complement and support your facility in achieving your certification status. The ACC's mission is to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health, with a vision for a world where innovation and knowledge optimize cardiovascular care and outcomes. Therefore, the ACC is also heavily vested in a collaborative partnership to ensure your facility achieves Transcatheter Valve Certification. Currently, within the healthcare industry, we are shifting from volume to value. The industry is challenged with inadequate patient care, outcomes, and potential financial penalties. Reduction in staff and resources has led to a decrease in staff morale and thus staff turnover. We are all trying to do more with less, and our objective is to provide each facility with a roadmap to success. Through the certification process, the facility will gain access to critical and timely data, determine gaps, improve processes which promote and create efficiency, while fostering the utilization of a multidisciplinary staff and team, which empowers them and improves resource utilization, improves patient outcomes, and in the interim, improves financial outcomes. As your collaborative partner, we provide you the stepping stones to succeed in your strategic goals for your structural heart program. Providing care begins with our interactions with the framework and infrastructure created to support the population we serve. The Transcatheter Valve Certification tool establishes that foundation by instituting your expert heart team that then utilizes data, evidence-based guidelines, and the patient values and preferences to develop a treatment plan that optimizes patient outcomes and overall satisfaction. Through the certification process, your site will optimize operational efficiencies and reduce resource waste, promote a strong governance structure, create a process to better screen patients with a particular focus on patient outcomes and experience. You will utilize registry information and maintain quality and survey readiness. It will also convey your commitment to quality and high standards of care in a competitive market. Transcatheter Valve Certification engages your staff in the utilization of the data your facility has collected and heavily invested in, and brings that data directly at the bedside to support your recommendations and the patient's health care decisions. The certification tool aligns with new metrics from the STS-ACC TBT registry and will employ the quarterly patient outcomes report into a meaningful process that fosters quality and performance improvement where needed. It will help to streamline your inventory of supplies and equipment needed to perform transcatheter valve procedures. Transcatheter valve devices are expensive, so having an excess inventory of such devices will likely be cost prohibitive. However, we want to ensure that all the necessary supplies are available for the case while minimizing expiring inventory. Therefore, the site will need to promote a process for requesting new products or specialized devices. The certification requirements also help to ensure a safe working environment, ensure minimal radiation exposure, and proper care of protective lead garments used within the transcatheter valve procedure room. Realizing that it takes time to adopt quality and process improvement initiatives, an allowance of 12 months is given for a site to achieve all mandatory requirements for certification. Some facilities take advantage of this full allowance, while others that have already established these processes may take less time to achieve the certification. With an assigned Accreditation Review Specialist for your facility, the journey toward certification is attainable. The ACC's ARS has the expertise to provide tailored guidance, recommendations, and note any opportunities to achieve your certification status. Whether building, strengthening, or specializing a program, transcatheter valve certification can provide that structure and the roadmap for improving a facility's current process. The first step in the certification process is to understand and assess the current facility processes. Each organization is unique. You may be starting a new program from scratch, or may currently have a transcatheter valve or structural heart program in place. It is important to first understand and generate a baseline report to properly evaluate and conduct a gap analysis. The baseline report will provide valuable information regarding the transcatheter valve program operations, as well as providing data on the organization's performance measures. It is important to provide an accurate assessment of the organization's current process. When conducting the baseline gap analysis, it will behoove the organization to be honest and truthful with the current realities and operation of their existing transcatheter valve program. By doing so, this will allow our staff to identify any shortfalls and partner to build upon current processes and focus on specific quality and process improvement initiatives that would strengthen the program and result in the most beneficial outcomes for the patients and organization. Performance improvement initiatives can include implementing specialized education, utilizing better data process to increase transparency, or expand the services offered by your structural heart program. And lastly, by employing process improvement initiatives, this will result in improved data submission and data utilization. Through transcatheter valve certification process, your facility can improve the quality of life for those suffering with valvular heart disease, resulting in decreased mortality, length of stay, and readmissions, while increasing patient satisfaction, decreasing costs, and increasing revenue. The ACC Transcatheter Valve Certification online tool is comprehensive and convenient. It allows for patient data collection and outcome reports, access to references, and provides examples of transcatheter valve program policies and protocols. With ACC's Transcatheter Valve Certification tool, the facility has access to educational sessions online and a complimentary registration for ACC's Quality Summit. As the professional home for cardiovascular care, the ACC has an abundance of resources. It is not only geared towards healthcare professionals, but also patients. The Transcatheter Valve Certification tool is one of those invaluable products that brings to fruition the guidelines, evidence-based literature, best practices, and education at the patient bedside. The Transcatheter Valve Certification process is an external review in partnership with each facility to foster implementation of the latest evidence-based guidelines, data utilization to support clinical decisions, incorporation of process improvement and modalities to promote better patient outcomes, and it promotes collaboration amongst cardiovascular specialties and services, and fosters a patient-centered approach. In conclusion, we must do better for our valvular heart disease patients and the healthcare organizations that care for them. There are many different barriers and struggles not only within the progression of the disease, but also within our healthcare delivery system. By partnering with the American College of Cardiology and employing certification requirements, establishing proper interventions, implementing quality and process improvement initiatives, your facility will be able to adopt improvements that will result in better patient outcomes. This concludes Lesson 4-4. You have now concluded all lessons within the overview course. Thank you for your participation.

video transcript

Lesson 4

ACC

Transcatheter Valve Certification Overview Course

certification journey