It is both an honor and a privilege to be a member of the cardiovascular community. But there is a responsibility that comes with the designation. The ACC and its members are committed to quality cardiovascular care in an effort to do the right thing for our patients.

Over the past two years, the Maryland Chapter of the ACC under the leadership of Sam Goldberg, MD, FACC, past president of the chapter, and several others at the chapter and national level have been working to develop an oversight system for all state hospitals performing PCIs. (Read previous blog posts on the topic here and here). The bill was introduced over a year ago, and just this past week the Maryland Legislature passed the bill which for the first time requires a state agency to develop requirements for peer or independent review, consistent with the ACCF/AHA/SCAI Guidelines for PCI, of difficult or complicated cases and for randomly selected cases for Maryland hospitals.

In a statement issued by the Maryland Chapter, Marc Mugmon, MD, FACC, president of the Maryland chapter stated, “Peer review is a fundamental component of any comprehensive continuous quality improvement effort and will enhance patient safety by providing constructive, objective feedback to cardiologists in a collaborative environment. Independent, external review will be free of bias and politics, and by identifying individual operator strengths and weaknesses, it will help achieve the highest standard of performance. This process will complement robust internal programs and will rapidly identify and address potential deviations from accepted evidence-based guidelines for the use of stents.”

The Maryland Chapter, at the invitation of the Maryland Health Care Commission, will be an integral part of the regulatory process to implement regulations and ongoing performance measures as a member of the newly establish Clinical Advisory Group.

This is a great example of what we can accomplish at the state level though the hard work of our Board of Governor leaders. Earlier this year the Maryland Chapter was presented with the award for Advocacy at the Leadership Forum, and I am pleased to see all of their hard work and efforts have come to fruition. I hope their efforts can be a model for other states.

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