Jack L. Cronenwett, MD, considered the “Grandfather of the VQI,” will retire as the chief medical officer (CMO) for Fivos, the medical data solutions technology partner for the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI). Cronenwett took on the role of CMO at Fivos after completing his term as medical director of the VQI in 2016.
His tenure was marked by significant efforts to collaborate with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and vascular device manufacturers to promote the use of real-world evidence for postmarket device evaluation.
During this time, Fivos developed multiple such projects to evaluate vascular devices more efficiently using VQI data. One important project was launched to obtain funding from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for surveillance of transcarotid artery revascularization (TCAR).
Cronenwett began his training in surgery at the University of Michigan. In 1984, he transitioned from Michigan to Dartmouth, an institution he considers as having a long history of quality improvement. The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, founded by Jack Wenberg, MD, in 1988, emphasizes quality improvement and catalyzed the creation of the Vascular Study Group of New England—the seeds of the VQI—in a bid to improve the quality of vascular healthcare.
“The key concept that we focused on when we first developed the VQI was that all physicians want to achieve the best results, and if they’re provided with data that shows that they have an opportunity to improve, they will act to make improvements. That concept remains the cornerstone of the VQI,” said Cronenwett.
Cronenwett also served as Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) president from 2002–2003, during which time he collaborated with Thomas Riles, MD, for the merger of the SVS with the American Association for Vascular Surgery (AAVS), creating the organization that the SVS is today.
As he gets ready to leave his position, Cronenwett shared some parting wisdom for his successor. “If you aim to move quickly, work solo; if you intend to achieve great distances, collaborate with others,” he said. This advice stems from his experience working collaboratively with others who share optimism for a project, urging leaders to disregard inevitable critics, he explained.
“There will always be naysayers about any new idea,” said Cronenwett, emeritus professor of surgery at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in Hanover, New Hampshire. “Eventually, when it becomes successful, the naysayers will come around. It was difficult to convince the SVS to take over the then-nascent VQI in 2011, when it was starting to expand beyond New England. But there were several influential people within the SVS at that time who recognized the potential and were able to work with us to achieve that.”
The VQI’s 14 registries contain demographic, clinical, procedural and outcomes data from more than a million procedures performed across the U.S., Canada and Singapore, with each record including information from the patient’s initial hospitalization and at one-year follow-up.
