American College of Radiology Launches Nation's First Registry-Based Cardiovascular Practice Network

October 29, 2009 – The American College of Cardiology today launched the PINNACLE Network, the first-ever registry-based cardiovascular network to link thousands of cardiology practices to one another and to the ACC’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR), the pre-eminent cardiovascular data repository in the United States.

The PINNACLE Network immediately addresses the rapidly shifting business environment that private cardiovascular practices face with a wealth of practice management and financial management tools. The PINNACLE Network also builds a foundation for innovative, registry-based systems to reward practices for the high-quality care that they provide.

“With the legislative and regulatory threats to traditional payment systems and the emergence of value-based payment programs, the ACC is in a unique position to develop and offer the PINNACLE Network with its suite of practice management tools to help practices not only survive but thrive,” said Alfred A. Bove, M.D., Ph.D., president of the ACC.

A comprehensive practice management system, the PINNACLE Network provides financial management tools to help practices thrive; workforce strategies to enable physicians to meet the increasing demand for cardiovascular care; guidance for the adoption of health information technology; and risk management education and strategies to lower the cost of liability premiums.

The PINNACLE Network will provide access to data management systems that translate data into clinical insights and leverages the power of the ACC’s national data registries to give practices negotiating power with payers for value-based payment systems.

“Embedding quality improvement and value-based payment in the natural flow of practice operations will be the foundation for a practice’s success clinically, financially and professionally,” said Janet Wright, M.D., the ACC’s senior vice president for science and quality. “By creating health information technology solutions for using ACC Guidelines and Appropriate Use Criteria at the point of care, the PINNACLE Network will show patients, colleagues and the health care community that we are delivering the right care for the right patient at the right time.”

The PINNACLE Network is powered by the PINNACLE Registry, the nation’s first operational office-based data registry and will provide a centralized system for clinical practices to promote practice innovations and achieve clinical excellence.

The PINNACLE Registry, designed by cardiologists, benefits from its two-year pilot phase as the IC3 Program and now will be integrated into the NCDR to provide participants with access to both hospital and ambulatory patient-focused data. As one of the largest practice-level scientific efforts undertaken in the United States, the IC3 Program, now the PINNACLE Registry, contains hundreds of thousands of clinical patient records focusing on four common cardiac conditions – coronary artery disease, hypertension, heart failure and atrial fibrillation.

For more information: www.pinnaclenetwork.org