Clinical audit: Heart health checks and lipid lowering therapies for primary prevention of CVD

Activity aim

In this clinical audit, you will conduct Heart Health Checks for your patients, providing comprehensive cardiovascular risk assessments and developing ongoing management plans involving pharmacological and lifestyle strategies to reduce cardiovascular risk.

Why take part in this program?

• Evaluate CVD risk for 5 patients using the Heart Health Check process, and develop effective long-term management plans informed by best practice and guidelines.
• Earn 6 CPD hours upon completion.

Learning outcomes

• Explain why an absolute risk reduction approach is essential in the primary prevention of CVD.
• Calculate the level of absolute CV risk in a given patient based on clinical factors and family and personal history.
• Develop a management plan for lifestyle modification and pharmacotherapy based on a patient’s absolute CV risk and current Australian primary prevention guidelines.
• Select an appropriate lipid-lowering regimen as part of a primary prevention strategy for CVD.
• Access resources provided by the Heart Foundation to conduct a Heart Health Check (MBS Items 699 or 177) to assess absolute CVD risk and apply an absolute CVD risk reduction approach to patient management.

Inclusion criteria

Patients who are eligible for this clinical audit are adults who are:

• aged 45 to 79 years (or 35 to 79 years for people with diabetes, or 30 to 79 years for First Nations people)
• have no history of CVD
• have not had another health assessment in the last 12 months e.g. MBS items 701, 703, 705, 707 or 715 (in order to claim the Heart Health Check under the MBS)

The Heart Foundation have a guide to identifying eligible patients using the Pen CS and POLAR platforms.

How long should it take?

The program has been designed to take approximately 4-6 weeks to complete. This includes patient recall from your practice, patient consult and program evaluation.

Tips to recruit patients

Recruitment may occur:

• Opportunistically as you consult appropriate patients as part of usual care.
• By active recall.

This activity is sponsored by Menarini.