Improving Quality: How Analytics and Collaboration Help CVL Cardiology Practices Outperform

To improve cardiovascular care and enhance the patient experience, cardiology practices need to measure quality accurately and implement data-driven interventions. Yet that can be challenging and resource-intensive, especially for independent cardiology practices.

With a mission to provide our patients with the highest quality cardiovascular care available, Cardiovascular Logistics (CVL) is deeply dedicated to improving quality across every practice on our platform. Our experience demonstrates that the combination of data analytics and collaboration leads to measurable improvements in quality and patient outcomes.

It Starts with the Right Quality Metrics

When cardiology practices determine how to measure quality in cardiovascular care, they tend to focus on several common metrics—and leading practices prioritize those that most directly enhance patient quality of life.

On the clinical side, it’s critical to track Medicare-driven measures such as the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), along with metrics related to American College of Cardiology guidelines that ensure physicians provide guideline-directed medical therapy. Data related to hypertension control, cholesterol control, and pharmacotherapy for patients with reduced left ventricle function, and use of statin therapy in patients with cardiovascular disease are just some of the clinical quality data that premier physicians consider.

Measuring quality from an operational perspective is equally important, as it impacts the patient’s overall experience. CVL practices use the rater8 platform to survey patients shortly after their visits, gathering feedback on every aspect of their experience—including the check-in and scheduling processes, waiting room time, the friendliness and demeanor of the full care team, the professionalism and efficiency of clinical staff, how well their questions and concerns were addressed, and whether they would recommend the practice to a friend. They can also benchmark their results against other practices within the platform and nationally.

Patient-centered metrics like these are vital to measuring patient outcomes in cardiovascular care and improving patient quality of life.

A Structured Approach to Quality Measurement is Key

With access to the right data and the tools to analyze it, cardiology practices can identify high-risk cardiovascular patients sooner based on electronic health records (EHRs), wearable monitoring devices, lab results, and other information sources. The proper infrastructure also allows practices to monitor the quality of their performance in real time using data dashboards and track how quality is trending to support the value-based care transition.

In addition, it takes a structured, best practices approach to collect and analyze the quality data required to identify and implement performance improvements. That’s one area where joining a cardiovascular platform yields significant advantages.

A platform like CVL has the resources to institute mechanisms that facilitate quality data collection and analysis. Those efforts include leveraging technology to extract relevant data from each practice’s EHR or other systems and participating in the NCDR registry, typically a requirement for cardiology practices with a hospital affiliation. By standardizing and formalizing data collection, we’re better equipped to analyze and benchmark the data to improve the quality of patient care and patient service platform-wide.

CVL takes a holistic view of quality measurement, combining EHR data with financial data, patient feedback, and national benchmarks to create a complete and accurate picture of cardiology service quality across every practice. And by assisting our practices in the transition from traditional MIPS to the MIPS Value Pathways program, we’re reducing documentation burdens for our physicians while ensuring they meet the most vital quality metrics.

The Role of Collaboration in Driving Cardiology Practice Quality

Joining a cardiovascular platform allows like-minded physicians and administrators to learn from other top-tier professionals, cross-pollinate innovative ideas, and provide direct input into quality enhancements. CVL staffs two councils specifically designed to achieve those objectives.

Our Quality Physician Advisory Council (PAC) brings together physicians and quality team members representing each of our platform practices. At periodic meetings, council members share their respective quality data, discuss best practices that are yielding good results, and identify opportunities to adapt clinical approaches to improve patient care. Improvement interventions can include creating more robust documentation, enhancing staff training on processes and protocols, or other data-driven approaches.

Our Quality Practice Enhancement Council (PEC) also comprises representatives from each affiliate, but is more operationally focused. This council strives to improve patient satisfaction by using rater8 data to assess the quality of the patient experience and recommending impactful operational changes, such as streamlined workflows or more efficient patient service processes.

Both councils have the power to drive a quality-driven culture and effect platform-wide quality improvements, leveraging best practices from locations that are excelling in a particular area. By cross-pollinating the cardiovascular care improvement strategies that are working well in one or more practices, these groups continually raise the bar on quality across the enterprise.

In addition to participating on our two quality councils, every CVL practice is actively involved in a variety of Medicare-driven quality programs that support value-based care, such as transitional care management, chronic care management, principal care management, and remote physiological monitoring. Through more frequent face-to-face touchpoints, these efforts keep patients more engaged in their cardiac care, improve compliance with pharmacotherapy, and reduce emergency room and hospital visits.

Turning Quality Data into Tangible Improvements

The combination of analytics and collaboration has fueled significant quality improvements at CVL practices, particularly when it comes to managing two of the main risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Hypertension management is a major goal for most cardiologists, as it’s known to reduce the incidence of stroke and myocardial infarction. Yet not all practices use the same approach to managing hypertension; there is even variability in how employees take blood pressure readings.

CVL took a methodical approach to reviewing the hypertension-related processes at all our locations, identified those with the best hypertension management rates, and gleaned best practices to apply across every site. The results have been astounding: Our platform consistently exceeds the American Heart Association’s target hypertension management goal by a wide margin, earning top awards in the Target:BP™ program. Some of our practices have achieved a hypertension control percentage of more than 83% every year since 2018, well above the target goal and in alignment with MIPS #236.

Cholesterol management is equally vital to improving a patient’s cardiovascular health and an important quality metric for cardiology practices. By collaborating with like-minded physicians and implementing innovative approaches, CVL practices regularly earn top honors in the Check. Change. Control. Cholesterol™ program—an initiative to improve cholesterol identification and management. By exceeding the program goal of having 70% or more of their adult, at-risk atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) population appropriately managed with statin therapy, these practices are reducing their patients’ CV risk factors in support of MIPS #438.

Innovative Technology Will Further Drive Quality

Premier cardiology practices can realize additional quality improvements by adopting advanced technology.

For example, CVL practices use EHRs that can detect whether a patient should receive a particular screening or be considered for a specific medication, then send an alert to the patient’s chart. When the provider reviews the chart during the patient’s next visit, they’ll see the alert and can take appropriate action. Human experts review patient charts from the same perspective to avoid missed opportunities to improve care quality. Our practices also use AI-powered tools to reduce the risk of appointment no-shows, improving access to care for all patients.  

Over time, our cardiology practices have found countless ways to employ technology to improve quality. In addition to using AI for cardiovascular workflow optimization and operational efficiency, top-tier practices are leveraging this rapidly evolving technology to enhance imaging and diagnostic interpretation and support clinical decision-making.

Ultimately, our goal is to enhance data gathering, analysis, and clinical decision-making processes to continuously improve patient care and maintain our leadership in delivering the highest standard of cardiovascular care in the US.

Investing in the systems, processes, and other resources to assess and act on cardiovascular care quality metrics can be overwhelming and financially impractical for an independent cardiology practice. That’s one of many reasons premier practices are joining the CVL platform.

Contact CVL to learn how our growing cardiovascular platform can help you better measure quality data and implement quality improvements that enhance patient care.