In an era where vascular care complexity surges, spanning open, endovascular, arterial, venous, and lymphatic procedures, the ACS and Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) partnered to help vascular surgery programs objectively demonstrate excellence through the Vascular Verification Program (Vascular-VP). Vascular-VP is a national quality framework that launched after 5 years of development. This program moves beyond subjective reputation, offering data-driven validation of a hospital’s infrastructure, processes, and outcomes across vascular surgery.
Vascular care programs verified under the Vascular‑VP adhere to a rigorous national quality framework. Vascular‑VP’s standards define two verification levels for hospitals:
- Comprehensive Inpatient centers staff 24/7 board-certified vascular surgeons, critical care teams, and all specialty support (e.g., vascular anesthesia, advanced imaging) to handle the full spectrum of arterial, venous, and aortic cases.
- Verified Inpatient centers meet the same standards but focus on a narrower case variety (e.g., routine EVAR, carotid). Each level’s criteria are documented in the Vascular‑VP Standards manual.
Requirements in the Vascular-VP are organized across nine domains.
For example, the Program Scope domain mandates a written scope and a table mapping procedures to verification level: only Comprehensive programs must handle the most complex open aortic cases (arch and thoracoabdominal aneurysms), whereas carotid and peripheral interventions fall under both levels.
Under Personnel Resources, programs must ensure 24/7 vascular coverage: a Comprehensive hospital needs a vascular surgeon on-call (available within 45 minutes), while a Verified program may also use a cardiothoracic or general surgeon, who is at least board-eligible, for its vascular service.
For both levels, facility standards require a dedicated vascular operating room or hybrid suite staffed 24/7 with vascular-trained nurses and technicians. Comprehensive programs must additionally have at least one dedicated hybrid operating room equipped with digital subtraction angiography.
The standards also ensure data rigor through tracking 30‑day follow‑up and loss‑to‑follow‑up monitoring. Lastly, there are required emergency protocols for myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, hemorrhage, and stroke.
The Vascular-VP verification brings competitive value, as well. A verified center becomes an ACS Surgical Quality Partner, a designation that “lets patients know [the center] is dedicated to quality and relentless self-improvement.” Administrators cite this credential to insurers and referring doctors as proof of excellence. For smaller hospitals that may have fewer opportunities to participate in programs of excellence, the Vascular-VP is celebrated as an opportunity to bring recognition to a hospital or team that is already doing great work in quality improvement.
While the program is still new, early reactions to the program have been positive. 100% of hospitals that participated in a post-site visit survey reported that participation in the Vascular-VP made a positive impact on their standardization of care, quality and safety personnel, culture of quality and safety, organization, and program communication. All but one hospital reported that participation in the program had a "very positive" impact on cost-effective care.
R. Clement Darling III, MD, FACS, Chief of Vascular Surgery at Albany Medical Center, observed that verification assures patients that the center is committed to quality and that its care has been vetted by external peers. This often translates into broader referrals and favorable payer contracts for verified centers. As William Shutze, MD, FACS, Clinical Associate Professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine at Texas A&M Health Science Center, Dallas, emphasized in an ACS/SVS webinar that participation is also an opportunity to invite non-vascular surgeons who are providing vascular care to join the peer review process.
Vascular-VP represents a commitment to a culture where infrastructure, expertise, and continuous data-driven refinement are recognized and set as the standard. Centers seeking distinction in vascular care can begin their journey via the ACS application portal.
