This post was authored by C. Michael Valentine, MD, FACC, co-director of the ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit.

Enduring the rigors of medical school, every would-be cardiologist is hammered with the training and education needed to care and heal patients to the best of his or her ability. However, what is not provided in medical school is any preparation of the less glamorous, logistical side of cardiovascular medicine. For the past several years I have had the honor of serving as co-founder and co-director of the ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit, a conference that specializes in teaching today’s cardiologists – veterans and novices alike – how to run a well-oiled practice, providing them with the expertise to create better patient outcomes and experiences through the delivery of high quality, cost effective care.

Today’s cardiologists continually struggle to keep up with the amount of knowledge expansion that takes place in the art and science of cardiovascular medicine, much less manage a practice and have a successful business. The complexity of it all has been increasing in a linear fashion for the last 20 years and physicians just can’t keep up with it.

The ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit was created to help ease the burden of these challenges, and the program is divided into four concentrations: teaching attendees the skills for operational leadership, financial stability, service line management and the ability to utilize quality parameters.

Looking at the average age of cardiologists today, those that are doing the leading are much older. Part of our goal is to help develop the leaders of the future while they are young, to train promising professionals into becoming men and women of authority.

From a monetary standpoint, running a hospital or private practice is a daunting undertaking. We impart the information necessary to educate on the national financing of health care, how payment structures have changed, and how to be more effective and efficient with funds so that the business isn’t losing in the things it’s trying to accomplish.

When you look at the different parts of cardiovascular service line, there’s cardiac surgery, vascular surgery, interventional cardiology, non-invasive cardiology, heart failure management, arrhythmia management and numerous other sub-sets of care. We provide the knowledge to coalesce these complex components into something administratively promising.

Finally, we update our attendees of the latest medical data available, delving into the finer points of new guidelines, registries and federal government requirements so that they may get the most out of their office and mend the quality of their patient care.

Relocating to Orlando, FL, after three years in the deserts of Las Vegas, this year’s meeting will take place Jan. 22-24, 2015, drawing in 300-400 attendees. Made up of small lectures and a variety of small classroom breakout sessions where real-world solutions can be provided to case-specific scenarios, by the time attendees leave they will be able to confidently tackle and improve issues in their practice.

To register for the ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit: Solutions for Thriving in a Time of Change, visit CardioSource.org.

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