Discussing and developing forward-looking systems of cardiovascular care that are a win for patients, providers and payers is a primary focus of ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit 2024, taking place in Washington, DC.

The Summit kicked off with an opening presentation from Harold D. Miller, MS, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, describing his vision for how to deliver patient-centered care that incentivizes quality.

“I think we need to find a way where we put patients back as number one,” said Miller. “To get there, we need true value-based care. And I think the only way we get to true value-based care is by putting the clinicians back in charge of health care.”

He argued that clinicians should be charging for quality, efficient care, not by the number of office visits. Instead, he proposed establishing purchaser-provider partnerships where clinicians can take control of providing care the way it should be delivered to achieve best outcomes, and design the payments required to support that care. 

In his opinion, these arrangements would benefit the patients, providers and payers involved where there is alignment on the results stakeholders are aiming to achieve and agreement on the measures defining success.

“In every other industry, success results in more services being sold, but in health care, success should result in fewer services sold, where patients are healthier,” said Miller.

A subsequent session delved further into the steps needed to achieve value-based specialty care, which Miller breaks down as the following: (1) identify specific areas of potentially avoidable spending, (2) design services that will reduce the avoidable spending, (3) pay adequately to support higher-value services and (4) require accountability for delivering value-based care.

Jason H. Wasfy, MD, MPhil, shared real-world efforts to reduce the cost of health care while maintaining quality, including the use of electronic consultations and protocols where advanced practice providers take point on cardiology response in the emergency department.

Additional presentations cover the challenges associated with integrating artificial intelligence into cardiovascular care, prepping for ambulatory procedural cardiovascular care, leveraging cardiovascular dashboards to improve care and more.

Bringing together all members of the cardiovascular team, CV Summit highlights best practices for creating a more efficient, effective and equitable health care system.

“This is our forum for discussing and teaching everything necessary for running an efficient private or academic practice while improving leadership and organizational skills,” said Howard (Bo) Walpole, MD, MBA, FACC, ACC CV Summit course director.

Get the latest from the Summit by following the ACC on social media and using the hashtag #ACCCVSummit to join in on these critical conversations.

Subscribe to ACC Anywhere to watch the sessions from ACC’s Cardiovascular Summit 2024. In addition to this course, ACC Anywhere features videos from ACC’s in-person and virtual meetings including Care of the Athletic Heart, Advancing the Cardiovascular Care of the Oncology Patient, ACC.23 Together with WCC and ACC.22, New York Cardiovascular Symposium, and Cardio-Obstetrics Essentials.

Keywords: Patient-Centered Care, Quality of Health Care, Remote Consultation, Health Care Costs, CV Summit