Cath lab accreditation: Our ACE in the hole

This morning on the Fox News program ‘‘House Call,’’ internist and commentator Dr. Marc Siegel told viewers that one out of every seven patients who receives an angioplasty does not meet the criteria for it and that one out of every two patients gets an unnecessary stent. What people must do, he said, is make sure they have ‘‘a proper cardiologist treating you . . . one who won’t have a knee jerk reaction.’’ [1] The segment ran for 4 min, wherein the discussion included mischaracterization of the findings of COURAGE as well as recent studies that have attempted to quantify how well we interventional cardiologists are adhering to the appropriate use criteria [2–4]. I am tempted to use my first President’s Page either to caution the investigators who are misinterpreting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) claims data to arrive at conclusions that malign interventional cardiologists as a group or to rail at the media for publishing misleading and sensational headlines instead of taking the time to really understand and explain what the appropriate use criteria (AUC)’s ‘‘uncertain’’ and ‘‘inappropriate’’ categories mean. Although I may focus on both of these messages in future President’s Pages, today I want to focus on what we as individual practicing interventionalists can do to help restore our profession’s great name. In addition to working with Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) as your society fights the good fight on the public relations (PR) front, each and every one of us should take steps to show our communities that we are, as Dr. Siegel put it, ‘‘proper cardiologists.’’ We can do this by seeking accreditation for our own cath labs through Accreditation for Cardiovascular Excellence (ACE), the inde-