Developing Benchmarks in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension in a Tertiary, Academic Medical Center

Benchmarks of clinical management are essential for improving the quality of care. However, the lack of established quality metrics for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) contributes to practice heterogeneity. We assessed our center's diagnostic practices, therapeutic practices, and risk-adjusted survival patterns over time for the purpose of establishing quality benchmarks. We analyzed the demographics, clinical characteristics, and diagnostic evaluation of 702 PAH patients enrolled between 1999 and 2019. We examined outcomes in this cohort, including an analysis of risk stratification, therapeutic practice patterns, hospitalizations, organ transplant, and survival. Initial diagnostic workup of incident PAH cases demonstrated excellent completion of echocardiographic (99%) and pulmonary function testing (91%), with improved completion of VQ scanning over the study time period (90% between 2015 and 2019). Right heart catheterization (RHC) was performed in all patients; RHC performed at our center was more likely to include complete hemodynamic data than those performed at referring institutions (55.4% and 30.4% respectively). The average number of PAH-specific medications prescribed increased over time; however, there was no significant increase in the use of parenteral therapy over time, even when stratified by the REVEAL risk score. Survival rates in the cohort were 94% at 1 year, 75% at 5 years, and 60% at 10 years, comparable to those of other PAH cohorts. Analysis of our well-characterized cohort of PAH patients reveals the extent to which guideline-directed diagnostic and therapeutic care is delivered at our specialty center, and the associated outcomes; these data may serve as a benchmark for continued improvements in quality of PAH care.