VALUE study reports on accreditation status

SEPTEMBER 2014 | Ellicott City, MD – The Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) announced today that researchers from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine have published a manuscript in Vascular Medicine analyzing a random national sample of Medicare beneficiary data to determine the outpatient vascular testing facilities' accreditation status and geographic location. The study manuscript entitled, "Accreditation Status and Geographic Location of Outpatient Vascular Testing Facilities Among Medicare Beneficiaries: The VALUE (Vascular Accreditation, Location & Utilization Evaluation) Study" is the first peer-reviewed presentation of the results. Findings indicate that the proportion of outpatient vascular testing facilities that are IAC accredited is low and varies by region.

"These results are very significant for health care providers, patients and their families as well as for payers and policy makers. Besides low utilization of IAC accredited vascular laboratories across the United States, we observed significant regional disparities in the utilization of IAC accredited laboratories, with a particularly low proportion of IAC accredited laboratories in the regions with greater mortality rates from vascular diseases," said study lead author Tatjana Rundek, MD, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Vice Chair of Clinical Research and a Director of the Clinical Translational Research Division in the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "Despite the VALUE study limitation of including only one accreditation agency, the accreditation of vascular testing laboratories sets practice standards and assures quality performance of these laboratories. Increasing the number of accredited vascular testing facilities to improve performance quality is a hypothesis that we plan to test in our future research."

Funded by the IAC, the VALUE Study examines the proportion of IAC accredited facilities providing vascular testing procedures nationally and the geographic distribution and utilization of these facilities.

Objectives

The objectives of the VALUE study were:

1. to identify the proportion of accredited IAC Vascular Testing facilities from a random national sample of Medicare beneficiaries receiving outpatient vascular testing services;
2. to describe the geographic distribution of these facilities.

According to the VALUE study's results, 13% (n=1730) of 13,462 total vascular testing facilities billing Medicare for vascular testing procedures, in a random CMS outpatient limited data set in 2011, were IAC accredited. The percentage of IAC accredited vascular testing facilities varied significantly by U.S. region, p<0.0001: 26%, 12%, 11% and 7% for the Northeast, South, Midwest and Western regions, respectively.

A nonprofit organization highly regarded for its imaging accreditation programs since 1990, the IAC is committed to its mission of Improving Health Care through Accreditation®, through a rigorous peer review process. The IAC provides accreditation programs for vascular testing, echocardiography, nuclear/PET, MRI, diagnostic CT, dental CT, carotid stenting and vein treatment and management. To date, the IAC accrediting divisions have granted accreditation to more than 15,000 sites throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. IAC accreditation is widely respected within the medical community, as illustrated by the support of more than 40 national medical societies. Varying per modality and practice setting, IAC accreditation is required in some states and regions by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and by numerous private insurers. For more information, please visit http://www.intersocietal.org.