The American College of Cardiology (ACC) is a leader in the promotion of high quality cardiovascular care. The mission of the ACC is to advocate for quality cardiovascular care through education, research promotion, development and application of standards and guidelines, and to influence health care policy.
To improve health care quality, the ACC strongly supports participation in physician certification and/or laboratory accreditation programs developed by physicians and appropriate to the field of practice. Certification and accreditation programs clearly have a role in quality improvement by providing independent evaluation and validation of performance of providers and facilities.
To achieve improved clinical performance and quality, the ACC encourages all providers to implement and utilize quality measurement and improvement tools, combined with outcomes data monitoring in all settings. The ACC strongly encourages adherence to ACC clinical practice guidelines and expert consensus documents that translate evidence-based medicine into clinical practice. The ACC also promotes the use of clinical competency statements and adherence to Core Cardiology Training Symposium (COCATS) recommendations where competency guidelines do not exist. Accreditation/certification programs provide a convenient means for meeting these criteria.
The ACC encourages governments and payers to make accreditation/certification programs mandatory conditions of participation. In implementing such requirements, ACC encourages a gradual approach to ensure a realistic timetable for compliance which minimizes economic impact on current practitioners. Exceptions to mandates may be necessary to ensure that patients have access to care in underserved areas.
The American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF) produces the following quality improvement tools that can assist physicians and other cardiovascular care providers to analyze their performance and participate in a continuous quality improvement process: Guidelines Applied in Practice (GAP) customizable tools to improve adherence to evidence-based guidelines; the National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR), which provides participants with standardized data elements and definitions and quarterly comparative reports on the safety and effectiveness of cardiac catheterization (and soon, electrophysiology and carotid stenting) procedures; and CathKIT, a tool for use in improving the performance of cardiac catheterization laboratories through self-assessment and evaluation to effectively and efficiently improve quality and outcomes of care. The ACCF has also been a partner in developing Intersocietal Accreditation Commission programs for vascular, nuclear, echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging laboratories.
Approved by ACC's Board of Trustees on March 5, 2005