As medical institutions navigate the complexities of modern healthcare infrastructure, two major health events highlight critical developments in clinical quality and patient care. The American College of Cardiology announced its upcoming September 2026 Quality Summit in Orlando, while healthcare systems demonstrate measurable financial and clinical returns through targeted quality accreditation programs.
ACC Quality Summit 2026 Set to Tackle AI and Cardiovascular Care in Orlando
The American College of Cardiology will convene its Quality Summit 2026 from September 16-18 in Orlando. The event connects the cardiovascular quality improvement community to drive measurable enhancements in patient care safety and value.
Cardiovascular care is advancing rapidly through artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies, according to event organizers. John Rumsfeld, MD, PhD, MACC, director of health technologies at Meta, will deliver the Ralph G. Brindis Keynote, titled Is the Future Already Here? AI in Cardiovascular Care.
Ellie Huff, MSN, RN, FACC, serves as the conference chair for the gathering.
Featured sessions at the summit include discussions on rural healthcare barriers, artificial intelligence implementation in cardiology, and care coordination strategies. Additionally, the event highlights specific poster presentations embargoed until Tuesday, September 8, 2026, at 9 a.m. ET, which cover topics such as virtual reality applications for claustrophobic patients undergoing cardiac PET/CT imaging.
Measurable Returns and Quality Protocols at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center
While national conferences focus on broad innovations, institutional case studies demonstrate how structured accreditation yields tangible patient outcomes and financial savings. Over the past decade, Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center in Houston, Texas, partnered with ACC Accreditation Services to earn multiple designations, including HeartCARE Center designation and platinum status in the Chest Pain – MI Registry Performance Achievement Award.
Speaking at the ACC Quality Summit, system director for the cardiovascular service line at CommonSpirit Health Seth Stephens and patient safety program manager Karen N. Mullins joined accreditation review specialist Kevin Wehrle to detail their improvement journey. Stephens highlighted that institutional leadership prioritized alignment with existing registries and robust programmatic governance.
“We found that the ACC really focused on and aligned with things that were important to us, a high focus on quality, high focus on performance improvement, and really thinking about programmatic structure and how we wanted our service line to be governed.”
Seth Stephens, system director for the cardiovascular service line at CommonSpirit Health, via ACC
By targeting specific National Cardiovascular Data Registry metrics—specifically Risk Standardized Acute Kidney Injury and Risk Standardized Bleeding—the hospital achieved notable clinical improvements. To lower AKI rates in percutaneous coronary intervention patients, the team implemented preprocedure hydration protocols, increased intravenous pump availability, and improved frailty documentation. These changes resulted in a hydration order increase of 28% within two months, and a nearly 2% decrease in Risk Standardized AKI between the second quarter of 2022 and the third quarter of 2024.
Quantifying Cost Avoidance Through Structured Quality Improvement
The procedural enhancements at Baylor St. Luke’s extended beyond clinical metrics to create substantial economic impact.
“We have a cath lab team of frontline leaders and physicians that met every two weeks on efficiency projects where we looked at all of our times…and with looking at each of those pieces in the process, instead of our volume going down, our volume actually went up.”
Seth Stephens, system director for the cardiovascular service line at CommonSpirit Health, via ACC
