Since IR Quarterly’s first issue 10 years ago, there have always been two leadership columns at the front of the magazine. The president’s column served as a direct line to SIR members and an opportunity for presidents to share updates on pressing issues facing interventional radiology. The executive director’s column long stood as an update on SIR and SIR Foundation’s recent accomplishments and endeavors.
As SIR and IR have evolved, these two columns often become one in the same. SIR volunteer leadership and professional staff work hand-in-hand every day on the same projects, issues and benefits that comprise the mission of SIR. To better reflect this partnership and interdependency, the president and executive director will now write one joint leadership column for each issue of IR Quarterly.
Collaboration is more than an SIR and SIR Foundation value, it’s a necessity in clinical medicine. At every level—from practice to research, education to advocacy—the best aspects of patient care are accomplished through partnering with others in a hospital setting, a society or coalition.
With this issue of IRQ, members receive a supplement publication highlighting the unique and innovative ways in which IRs have partnered with other specialties and created paradigm-changing therapy protocols. These collaborations improve patient care and push the needle forward in ways no one physician would be able to on their own. However, they are only a few examples of the many ways in which collaboration and teamwork drive IR.
SIR and SIR Foundation collaborate every day to create practice resources, educational offerings, coding and billing updates, and research initiatives to benefit our members. The society and foundation advocate on behalf of all our members—whatever the practice type, setting or area of focus—to carriers, Congress, administrators and patients.
As we pursue those efforts, we consider the context of what we achieved in 2021.
Medicare cuts
Just before the end of the year, SIR was successful in lobbying Congress to reverse crippling Medicare cuts that would disproportionately affect IRs (p. 31). Our ability to positively influence and change these threats to reimbursement and health care policy was the culmination of ongoing efforts taken by the SIR government affairs and practice affairs teams, who mobilized thousands of members to oppose the proposed cuts. SIR also joined forces with other organizations such as the Cardiovascular Coalition, the ACR Medicare Coalition and the Clinical Labor Coalition, among others. There is much more work to do but the more voices we have, the stronger we are and the further our message carries.
SIR/SIR Foundation governance evolution
At SIR 2022, members will vote on our proposed governance evolution, which will transform the framework of how SIR and SIR Foundation operates by increasing transparency, ensuring all critical areas of IR are being addressed and expanding participation and engagement opportunities for our membership. The new SIR and SIR Foundation Steering Council is the first step and lynchpin of the new collaborative model. The Steering Council will bring subject matter experts, through our new Clinical Specialty Councils, division councilors and SIR and SIR Foundation officers together as our new decision-making vehicle.
Data and research
SIR and SIR Foundation significantly affects the community through its work to foster research and collect data that improves the specialty via quality improvement and furthers patient care. We achieve this mission through dedicated partnerships and collaborative trials, such as PRESERVE. Sponsored by IVC Filter Study Group Foundation, a collaboration between SIR and the Society for Vascular Surgery, PRESERVE has evaluated the safety and effectiveness of IVC filters. We look forward to seeing the upcoming results of this study published and presented later this year.
More data results in more robust analysis, which is why registries and questionnaires are crucial to furthering science. Recently, SIR Foundation partnered with the Mapi Research Trust to promote the Uterine Fibroid Symptom and Health-Related Quality of Life Questionnaire (UFS-QOL) a questionnaire that will assess symptoms associated with uterine fibroid tumors to measure a patient’s pre- and posttreatment symptoms to aid in determining the treatment plan. The questionnaire, developed by James B. Spies, MD, MPH, FSIR, is currently in use by several research groups.
Collaboration doesn’t happen only with external organizations. It’s imperative at home, among SIR members working together to further the field—such as participation in the VIRTEX Data Registry. VIRTEX affords the potential to become the gold standard for interventional radiology data, collecting and allowing analysis of real-world data to standardize therapies, advance evidence-based clinical practice guidelines and demonstrate the value that IR procedures bring to patients and to the entire health care system. But it can only work with full collaboration and participation from members.
SIR and SIR Foundation exist to represent the specialty–your specialty. We understand and are committed to fostering the power of collaboration and engagement to move IR forward. Our history of previous successes are examples of what can be done when working together and joining forces. Let’s continue that spirit of partnership as we move forward on behalf of patients and the entire health care landscape.
