Redefining the standard of care

By James B. Spies, M.D., MPH, FSIR 
SIR 2014–15 President

  
In the past year, we continued our focus on aligning our operational activities to our strategic plan and advanced a number of initiatives in the areas of clinical practice, outcomes data, awareness of IR and innovation. Our overall goal continues to be to make IR the first choice in image-guided therapy.

The training paradigm for our specialty in this country is undergoing an exciting change, which will lead to primary specialty certification in IR and DR. The program requirements for the new residency were approved this past fall. SIR has led in this effort, which is a great achievement. I would like to thank the countless SIR members and our staff for the success we have had to date. I would particularly like to thank John Kaufman, Matt Mauro, Jeanne Laberge, Dan Siragusa and Vicki Marx for their pivotal roles in bringing this long-term effort to a successful conclusion.

For several years, our goal has been to provide members with the tools you need to assess your own practice and to participate in national efforts to improve patient care and outcomes. 

•  SIR began building an IR registry database in collaboration with ACR’s National Radiology Data Registry. It will be driven by the use of standardized procedure reports, which allow the passive extraction of data to the registry. We will dictate our reports, and the data will be automatically sent to the registry. To date, we have developed five procedure report templates, and these are undergoing testing in a one-year pilot study to evaluate their ease of use and content. We will open the registry for broader participation once the pilot is complete. This initial registry will be for the purposes of meeting CMS quality metric requirements and MOC PQI requirement.

• We plan to extend the structured report mechanism to launch more focused registries on topics important to the advancement of our specialty. In 2014, our research consensus panel discussed issues related to central venous access and outlined a registry proposal, and we hope this will be a path to create this and other procedure or disease-specific registries.

• SIR has allied with the Society for Vascular Surgery to initiate the PRESERVE trial, the first, large-scale, multispecialty prospective clinical research trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness retrievable filters in the United States. PRESERVE is set to enroll the first patients this spring, with participation from seven filter manufacturers and a goal to enroll a total of 2,100 patients.

• We continue to offer comprehensive learning opportunities—including the Annual Scientific Meeting. We also recognize the central role that maintenance of certification has for our profession and are refocusing our annual meeting and online content to provide an easy means of obtaining SA-CME to meet MOC requirements. In addition, we had nearly 1,000 SIR 2015 abstract submissions, a clear indication that our annual meeting remains the premier meeting for original science and innovation. This year we added an innovation forum to provide a means through which new device concepts could be presented.

• SIR continues to be your best advocate in health policy, presenting our views to CMS insurance carriers and legislators to advance the cause of IR practice.

• SIR concluded one of its strategic plan imperatives this year—clarifying the society’s brand to better articulate how IR fits in today’s health care environment and help position the society and foundation as leaders in supporting the delivery of quality patient care.

We should always remember that we pioneered minimally invasive medicine, which at its core is about the application of creativity and an innovative spirit to solving medical problems. We have never stopped innovating, and that innovation is how we continue to redefine the standard of care.

Thank you for the privilege of serving as your 2014–15 SIR president. I would like to thank the leaders and volunteers and you, the members of this society, for all you do for our profession. What a privilege it has been for me to be a part of such a great collaborative effort. Thank you for that privilege.