Control of heart disease risk factors varies widely among outpatient practices, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association's Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013.
Researchers compared electronic health records of 115,737 patients in 18 primary care and cardiology practices participating in The Guideline Advantage™, a collaboration of the American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association and American Heart Association that aims to reduce risks for chronic diseases. They found:
"Previously, we've focused on improving the quality of inpatient hospital care and haven't explored enough how to improve outpatient care," said Zubin Eapen, M.D., the study's lead author and an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University in Durham, N.C. "This baseline snapshot lets us see just how much progress could be made in preventing or managing diseases."
"It's eye-opening for practices to see how much better or worse they're doing than their peers on nationally derived measures of quality. They can learn to improve in collaboration with others instead of alone," he said.
Co-authors are Vincent Bufalino, M.D.; Eric D. Peterson, M.D., M.P.H.; and Adrian Hernandez, M.D., M.H.S. Additional disclosures are on the abstract. Follow news from the Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2013 via Twitter: @HeartNews; #QCOR13.
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