Penn Medicine Associate Professor and Director of Research at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI) Peter Groeneveld has been named Founding Director of Penn’s Cardiovascular Outcomes, Quality and Evaluative Research Center (CAVOQER).

CAVOQER is a center within the Penn School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Institute (CVI); its research will focus on determining what tests, treatments, technology, structures, processes and systems provide the best patient outcomes and economic value in the “real world” of cardiovascular health care.

Peter Groeneveld, MD, MS, is the Founding Director of Penn’s new Cardiovascular Outcomes and Quality Research Center.

“Leveraging Penn’s longstanding excellence in health services research, health economics, and cardiovascular care, the CAVOQER Center is designed to propel Penn into the top rank of cardiovascular outcomes research institutions nationwide,” said Groeneveld.

Broad support
The center is being sponsored by Penn’s Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Division of Cardiac Surgery, Penn Medicine’s Heart and Vascular Center (HVC), the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and the Leonard Davis Institute.

“Dr. Groeneveld is one of nation’s top scientists in cardiovascular quality and outcomes research,” said Cardiovascular Medicine Division Chief Thomas Cappola, MD, ScM. “His vision for CAVOQER will bring together diverse faculty dedicated to use the best evidence to guide cardiovascular care. We are absolutely thrilled to support it.”

According to Groeneveld, the launch of the new initiative was ultimately made possible by a series of Penn Medicine hires over the last five years that created the “critical mass” of multidisciplinary faculty talent required for a cardiovascular outcomes and quality research (CVOQR) center.

High-impact field of research
Over the last twenty years, CVOQR has evolved from a little-recognized academic pursuit to a widely recognized, high-impact field that spans the clinical domains of cardiology, cardiac surgery, emergency medicine, general internal medicine and nursing as well as the social science fields of economics, social policy, management and organizational behavior.

Among the academic medical centers that have already developed substantial research programs in this area are Yale, Duke, Harvard and Stanford.

Meanwhile, the cost, quality and patient-centered imperatives of the Affordable Care Act have further increased the need for cardiovascular-focused research directly relevant to daily clinical operations.

In addition to his positions at Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and LDI, Groeneveld, MD, MS, is a staff physician at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center and Director of LDI’s Health Services Research Data Center.

Since his initial 2003 appointment at Penn, Groeneveld has developed a nationally recognized research agenda in cardiovascular outcomes, with a particular focus on the clinical, social and economic impact of new technologies. In his leadership role at LDI over the last eight years, he has overseen the development of high-performance research computing and research database systems and resources.