Providing the entire cardiovascular care team, industry leaders and other stakeholders with the tools, resources and insights necessary to design, implement and ultimately succeed in their quality improvement (QI) efforts is at the center of ACC’s Quality Summit, kicking off Oct. 11 in Orlando, FL.

This year’s Summit seeks to provide attendees with NCDR registry-specific and hospital industry knowledge along with a deeper understanding of the value of accreditation and ways patient data can drive process improvement initiatives. Over the course of three days, participants will have the opportunity to hear from various QI experts, engage in hands-on education sessions, network with colleagues from across the U.S., and learn from over 100 ePoster abstracts highlighting real-world cardiovascular quality initiatives in action.

With this year’s live and in-person program, attendees can discover how to reboot and rebrand health care quality, identify best practices and strategies for improving both care delivery and patient outcomes, gain insights on how to engage physicians and staff in the quality process, and even earn continuing education credit.

Chaired by David E. Winchester, MD, MS, FACC, ACC Quality Summit 2023 will feature an opening presentation by Ralph G. Brindis Keynote speaker, Stephanie Mercado, exploring strategies to maximize human potential of the workforce to advance quality and safety. Mercado’s passion for increasing the capacity of health care professionals to improve delivery of care will set the tone for this year’s meeting.

“We are at a time in history where upping our game has never been more pressing,” states Mercado. “A capable quality leader needs to be engaged in corralling of the team to do their best work. When we understand that quality is both process and the result – we’ll see that quality is the work.”

Other general sessions will address topics such as navigating quality in the face of corporate medicine, cardiovascular disease prevention at the population level, the impact of artificial intelligence on cardiovascular patient care and more. In addition, specialized tracks centered around individual registries, accreditation and leadership will include sessions on using guidelines to increase patient throughput and decrease cost of care, easing the burden of data abstraction, finding value in accreditation, promoting quality tools with limited resources, and more.

Health equity also promises to be a key topic at this year’s meeting, with closing speaker Dru Bhattacharya, chief diversity officer of Banner Health Foundation and Alzheimer’s Foundation, set to discuss the role of providers, patients and community in creating a culture of health equity. His background as an interdisciplinary scientist, scholar and health system leader brings a distinct, informed perspective on the connection between equity and quality health care.

Beyond the Summit’s countless opportunities for learning and networking, ACC’s QI programs have a lot to celebrate, including the 25th anniversary of ACC Accreditation Services, marking well over two decades of advancing quality and excellence in cardiovascular patient care; global expansion, with health systems from Vietnam to Mexico making the most of the College’s registry and accreditation resources; and more than 2.5 million people taking the Early Heart Attack Care (EHAC) Pledge, demonstrating the wide-reaching success of ACC’s EHAC program in educating the public about early heart attack symptoms and action steps.

As chair, Winchester is looking forward to this year’s lineup of speakers, sessions and events geared toward fostering a community of quality where clinicians can share experiences, learn from each other’s work and develop the QI solutions of tomorrow.

“ACC’s Quality Summit is an exceptional opportunity for anyone interested in improving the quality of cardiac care to learn about the latest advances in the field and to network with like-minded professionals,” says Winchester. “We will be exploring advances in research on quality, discussing accreditation and registry services, and learning from internationally renowned speakers.”

For more coverage of the conference, check out the meeting’s digital newspaper, use the hashtag #ACCQuality23 and follow the ACC on social media.