ACC and Armus Corporation Launch Initiative to Improve Worldwide Heart Care

July 22, 2021—The American College of Cardiology (ACC) announced a collaboration with Armus, a California-based health care data management and data science services corporation, to launch Global Quality Solutions.

According to ACC, Global Quality Solutions is an initiative to improve cardiovascular health at hospitals and health systems around the world through localized quality improvement initiatives. It is based on the foundation that quality improvement in cardiac care is seated in solid data collection, measurable outcomes, benchmarking, education, and transparency.

Through the Global Quality Solutions initiative, ACC and Armus will work with hospitals around the world to collect data on cardiovascular procedures using evidence-based algorithms powered by the ACC’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) program of clinical cardiac registries.

In the collaboration, Armus will work directly with hospitals to educate and train about incorporating data collection processes into their workflow and on streamlining how data is integrated into electronic health records. Hospitals will receive initial orientations, then in-person and on-demand trainings on quality improvement best practices, analyzing outcomes data, and planning and implementing organizational change, stated the ACC announcement.

Global Quality Solutions will initially launch in South Africa, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, and will expand to additional countries and sites in a later phase.

In accordance with NCDR Chest Pain and CathPCI registry data sets, three pilot hospitals will conduct beta testing and develop dashboards for tracking quality improvement based on the collected data, The three pilot sites are Lenmed Ethekwini Hospital and Heart Center in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and Hospital Israelita Albert Einstein in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, and the ACC is committed to achieving its mission to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health on a global scale,” commented Salim Virani, MD, the ACC Global Quality Solutions Work Group Chair, in the ACC’s press release. “With Global Quality Solutions, ACC is aligning its resources, strategies, tactics, and metrics to achieve a greater global impact in reducing heart attack deaths and save lives.”