In this issue:
APRIL 2024 Volume 20 Number 4
2G uest editorial How open access is changing academic publishing
13 L eadership SVS launches 5th Leadership Development Program
9C hatGPT Research provides ‘stepping stone’ for future application of AI in vascular surgery
15 VAM 2024 End of an era: Schanzer and Robinson set to leave legacy of VAM innovation
THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE CX 2024
ENDOVASCULAR SHOWDOWN: STAGE SET FOR BASIL-3 FIRSTTIME DATA RELEASE
www.vascularspecialistonline.com
SCVS 2024
By Jocelyn Hudson AT THE CHARING CROSS (CX) Symposium 2024 (April 23–25) in London, England, Andrew Bradbury MD, professor of vascular surgery at the University of Birmingham in Solihull, England, and the BASIL-3 team of triallists will address the pressing question of which endovascular strategy wins in the disputed femoropopliteal segment. The investigators will be presenting—for the very first time— the results of this long-awaited, only completed, fully publicly funded randomized controlled trial (RCT) in the space. The BASIL-3 team will reveal clinical and cost-effectiveness data comparing three alternative femoropopliteal endovascular revascularization strategies—plain balloon angioplasty with or without bail-out bare metal stent, drugcoated balloon with or without bail-out bare metal stent, and drugeluting stent—for the management of severe limb ischemia (chronic limb-threatening ischemia [CLTI]). “They’re actually very different technologies,” Bradbury points out ahead of CX 2024. “So, when we set up BASIL-3, we thought it was very important to have a three-arm trial so that we could compare these three different endovascular strategies. And we’ve been able to do that: we’ve recruited to target, observed more than the required number of primary endpoints, and that gives us at least 90% power. We have very complete, virtually 100%,
BAD READING: HOW TO CLAW BACK NEGATIVE REVENUE? Worrying new data demonstrate consistent shortfall of more than a fifth in net revenues over a four-year period for a quintet of commonly performed vascular procedures By Bryan Kay
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F
ive frequently performed vascular surgeries at a prominent New Orleans-based health system between 2019 and 2022 yielded an average yearly decrease in net revenue of -11.5%, lending weight to growing national evidence that lay bare how increasing direct costs are outpacing reimbursements at U.S. hospitals. Data from Oschner Health were presented at the 2024 Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery (SCVS) Annual Symposium in Scottsdale, Arizona (March 16–20), with presenting author Clayton Brinster, MD, highlighting that “the significantly lower, concomitant increase in reimbursement demonstrates
an ominous trend of eroding hospital revenue for vascular surgery.” The analysis out of New Orleans comes amid escalating healthcare costs in the U.S. in the wake of the global pandemic—now nearly $5 trillion per year, or about 20% of gross domestic product (GDP). Brinster pointed to data showing that by 2022, more than 50% of U.S. hospitals were operating on a negative margin. Despite signs of some gains early last year, the former Oschner Aortic Center senior staff vascular surgeon, now co-director at the UChicago
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