PAD Performance Measures Developed

Committee releases measures for improved clinical care of adults with peripheral artery disease

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 1 (HealthDay News) -- The Peripheral Artery Disease Performance Measures Writing Committee recently issued performance measures for adults with peripheral artery disease (PAD). The measures have been published online Nov. 29 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The American College of Cardiology Foundation and the American Heart Association, along with other organizations that made up the writing committee, are responsible for developing PAD performance measures that address lower extremity and abdominal aortic disease. These measures are intended for patients age 18 and older who have been evaluated in an outpatient setting. The aim of the new measures is to improve PAD clinical care and outcomes by serving as vehicles to accelerate the appropriate translation of scientific evidence into clinical practice.

PAD patients are at high risk of fatal complications if undertreated. The latest performance measures are thus intended to improve diagnosis and treatment of PAD outpatients, with an overall goal of improving patients' walking distance and speed, improving their quality of life, and decreasing cardiovascular event rates.

"These documents are intended to provide practitioners and institutions that deliver care with tools to measure the quality of their care and identify opportunities for improvement. It is our hope that application of these performance measures will provide a mechanism through which the quality of medical care can be measured and improved," the authors write.

Several members of the writing committee disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical and/or medical device companies.

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