Class of 2024–25: VQI announces third annual set of Fellowship in Training Program awardees

The Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) Patient Safety Organization’s Fellowship in Train­ing (FIT) Program has announced its third class of FIT participants for 2024–25 along­side the new FIT scholars.

VQI FIT began in January 2022 and is de­signed to introduce residents and fellows in vascular surgery and other cardiovascular-re­lated training programs to the SVS’ Vascu­lar Quality Initiative (VQI). It aims to foster an understanding of quality processes and metrics through mentorship in the VQI, in collaboration with the Association of Pro­gram Directors in Vascular Surgery (APDVS), American College of Cardiology (ACC) and Society for Vascular Medicine.

Participants and mentors use clinical performance data from the VQI registries to enable trainees to learn about quality improvement in healthcare. Each trainee works on projects involving either health services and outcomes research or quality improvement, all designed to improve patient health outcomes.

Adam Johnson, MD, chair of the VQI FIT Committee, looks beyond these current proj­ects and into the future. “What really excites me are the people in the program that we’re investing in, giving them skills they need to have a successful next project,” he said. These skills will help “build who they are as innovators and changemakers and help them become the next generation of leaders in vas­cular surgery.”

The 2024–25 FIT participants, (mentors), centers, and projects are:

Quality Projects

• Lisa Vi (mentor Miranda Witheford), Uni­versity Health Network, Toronto, Canada; studying the impact of homelessness on vascular surgery
• Chinmayee Pottie, (Matthew Corrierre), The Ohio State University, Columbus; how distance to a high-volume center, in­surance and primary care provider affect patients with severe late-stage aortic and peripheral arterial disease
• Lindsey A. Olivere, (Michael Madigan), University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC); working on an institutional quality improvement project to establish a post-amputation care pathway in order to centralize and improve care delivery to amputees
• Gabrielle Rieth (Matthew Corriere), The Ohio State University; utilizing throm­boelastography (TEG) to correct coagu­lopathy and improve patient outcomes in vascular surgery
• Vinay Bhushan Lakki, (Abhishek Singh), Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska; implementing stan­dardized patient selection criteria for ca­rotid artery stenting
• Ioannis Tsouknidas, (Robert Meisner), Lankenau Medical Center, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania; studying limb preserva­tion, including indications, techniques and results
• Falen Demsas, (Nikolaos Zacharias), Mas­sachusetts General Hospital, Boston; ex­amining how to implement cul­turally competent surgical care practices to reduce disparities in surgical outcomes among un­derserved populations
• Brandon Gaston, (Nikolaos Zacharias), Massachusetts General Hospital; performing a retro­spective head-to-head com­parison of frailty calculators for predicting outcomes, length of stay and post-surgery readmission

Research Projects

• Guillermo Polanco Serra, (Pouya Ente­zami), Henry Ford Health, Detroit; eval­uating the effectiveness of novel endovas­cular treatments to hemodialysis salvage
• Michael Chaney, ( Jason Ryan), Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo; eval­uating the association between Global Limb Anatomic Staging System (GLASS) scoring, and amputation-free survival and wound healing after isolated proximal en­dovascular intervention
• Lara Lopes, (Ashley Vavra), Northwest­ern Memorial Hospital, Chicago; examin­ing the correlation between residence in limited food-access or low-income areas and outcomes following revascularization for PAD
• Karan Chawla, (Matthew Blecha), Loyola Medical Center, Maywood, Illinois; exam­ining variation in thoracoabdominal aor­tic aneurysm repair (TAAA) and carotid interventions across institutions
• Lorela Weise, (Matthew Blecha), Loyola University; examining the thoracic endo­vascular aortic repair (TEVAR)-complex aortic dataset to determine the efficacy of petticoat placement and its association with 30-day mortality
• Angela Danielle Sickels, (Adam Beck), University of Alabama Medi­cal Center, Birmingham; evaluating the optimal threshold diameter in women’s elective AAAs
• Menna Hegazi (Nii-Kabu Ka­butey), University of California, Irvine; evaluating the presence and clinical significance of vari­ous disparities in dialysis access
• Isaac Naazie (Linda Harris), Buffalo Gen­eral Medical Center, New York; investigating the comparative effectiveness of treatment modalities, identifying predictors of adverse outcomes in vascular surgery
• Irina Kanzafarova, (Michael Stoner) Uni­versity of Rochester, New York; studying outcomes of infrainguinal bypass surgery with simultaneous distal outflow endovas­cular intervention versus standard infrain­guinal bypass surgery
• Justin Jay Bader, (Cassius Iyad Ochoa Chaar), Yale New Haven Hospital, Con­necticut; using patient databases and known predictive risk factors to design and build a model to predict the risk of post-contrast acute kidney injury depend­ing on volume of contrast given
• Camila Guetter, (Marc Schermerhorn), Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; investigating the relationship be­tween diabetes mellitus and antidiabetic medications with changes in aneurysmal sac size post-endovascular aneurysm re­pair (EVAR) for AAA
• Guarang Joshi, (Marc Schermerhorn), Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia; identifying the ideal off-the-shelf graft for promoting the best outcomes in endovas­cular repair for ruptured AAA

In addition, past participants also received the Jack. L. Cronenwett Quality Improve­ment Scholarship Awards to continue re­search and/or work more closely with VQI/ PSO staff and committees. The scholarship is named for Dr. Jack L. Cronenwett, the VQI registry’s co-founder, vascular surgeon and educator. He is professor of surgery emeritus at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, was professor of the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Policy and Clinical Practice for nearly 34 years and is chief medical officer for Fivos, VQI’s data management partner.

Scholars named

Five vascular trainees have been selected as FIT Scholars for 2024–25. The safety pro­gram is part of the VQI. They are:

• Christine Kariya (Danny Bertges), Uni­versity of Connecticut, Farmington; im­plementing patient-reported outcomes (PRO) for better understanding of out­comes in endovascular treatment of PAD and venous care in women with varicose veins, particularly in underserved popu­lations
• Mitri Khoury (Nikolaos Zacharias), Uni­versity of Arizona, Tuscon; refining the PSO definition of “medically unfit” using registry information and major adverse outcomes to help determine treatment plans
• Christopher Chow (Arash Bornack), University of Miami, Florida; evaluating outcomes of carotid artery stenting in pa­tients with uncommon conditions such as variant aortic arch anatomy or patients with primary carotid artery dissection
• Mikayla Lowenkamp (Michael Madigan), UPMC; smoking cessation and medical management in vascular diseases, in­cluding developing educational materials and integrating tobacco specialists into outpatient clinics
• Saranya Sundaram (Thomas Brothers), Medical University of South Carolina; tracking carotid endarterectomies and outcomes after new quality improvement measures were implemented, including data on the ease of use of the measure at the six- and 12-month marks
• Amanda Filiberto (Adam Beck), Univer­sity of Alabama at Birmingham; study­ing data and outcomes to ascertain if the VQI’s definition of acute kidney injury after surgery should be changed to align with the updated national definition

Learn more about the FIT Program and its participants at vqi.org.