The Pulmonary Hypertension Association’s (PHA’s) Pulmonary Hypertension Care Centers (PHCC) program granted Regional Clinical Program (RCP) accreditation to the Cardiovascular Institute of North Colorado in December. PHA launched the PHCC accreditation program in 2014 to improve the quality of care and outcomes for people with pulmonary hypertension (PH). Nationwide, PHCCs provide treatment for more than 14,000 people with PH who benefit from seeing clinicians who specialize in this disease that often is misdiagnosed.
The Cardiovascular Institute of North Colorado is one of 62 centers that have earned PHCC accreditation; 48 adult and eight pediatric centers received the PHCC initiative’s Center of Comprehensive Care (CCC) accreditation and another six clinics earned Regional Clinical Program (RCP) accreditation.
PHCCs are eligible and encouraged to participate in and help build the PHA registry (PHAR). PHAR collects data about newly evaluated pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) patients who are treated at PHCCs in the U.S. As of January 1, 42 of the 62 accredited programs participate in PHAR and have enrolled more than 760 patients. Data from the PHAR carries the potential to advance research and lead to better and more targeted PH treatments.
