The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) and the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) jointly announced at ASNC’s 22nd Annual Scientific Sessions a partnership to develop an ASE Echocardiography Module to expand ASNC’s ImageGuide Registry. The Echo Module, ImageGuideEcho, will continue the registry’s mission to harness the power of patient data to accelerate research and technology development for improved patient outcomes in the field of cardiovascular imaging. Nuclear cardiology and echocardiography together play a fundamental role in the diagnosis and management of patients with cardiovascular disease, and the ability to collect data on both modalities will provide a more comprehensive picture of the overall quality of cardiac imaging.

The ImageGuide Registry, the nation’s first registry for non-invasive cardiac imaging, was developed and launched by ASNC in 2015 to improve the quality of cardiac imaging and improve patient care. As a recognized Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) since 2015, the ImageGuide Registry allows physicians to meet requirements under the new Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and enables ASNC and ASE to develop their own modality-specific performance measures that capture a greater level of granularity on cardiac imaging than traditional MIPS measures. Currently, there are 15 nuclear cardiology measures available for 2017 MIPS reporting covering topics such as attenuation correction, protocols for obese patients, and LVEF reporting, with the addition of 15 echocardiography measures slated for the 2018 reporting year.

ImageGuide will support nuclear cardiology and echocardiography laboratories, interpreting physicians, technologists, and sonographers by fostering continuous quality improvement initiatives in the field of cardiac imaging. The new partnership enables the ImageGuide Registry to address a broader scope of cardiac imaging through the data collection, reporting, and benchmarking of both nuclear and echocardiography studies in one robust tool.
“ImageGuide has already demonstrated an important impact on patient care through quality improvement initiatives. Expansion of this important aspect of the ImageGuide Registry to echocardiography and the synergy this will create for cardiac imaging laboratories is a significant step in providing patient focused, low cost and efficient imaging. Truly transforming non-invasive cardiac imaging,” said ASNC Registry Oversight Committee Chair Peter Tilkemeier, MD, FASNC.

Cardiology Homepage