Closing the gap-cardiovascular risk and primary prevention: results from the American College of Physicians quality improvement program.
The objective was to study the impact of a practice-based quality improvement program on practice teams' care for patients who have increased risk of cardiovascular disease. A total of 54 team members from 18 internal medicine practices participated in an educational program that used a pre-post intervention study design and focused on measures related to cardiovascular risk factors. The program involved live instruction, faculty-led conference calls, practice data collection, and progress reports detailing practices' improvement strategies. Data on 817 patients were reported. Practices showed significant improvement in counseling for diet (70% to 78%), exercise (67% to 74%), and weight loss (64% to 72%). Use of aspirin (53% to 64%) and statins (83% to 89%) also showed significant improvement. Administration of flu vaccine increased significantly from 51% to 54%. Improvements in patient counseling and medication management, if sustained, should lead to fewer cardiovascular events. However, program duration did not allow the capture of outcomes measures improvement.
Snow
Vincenza
V
American College of Physicians, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA.
Reynolds
Cara Egan
CE
Bennett
Lia
L
Weiss
Kevin B
KB
Snooks
Qianna
Q
Qaseem
Amir
A
D000368:Aged; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000517:prevention & control*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D040242:Risk Reduction Behavior; D012955:Societies, Medical