Click here for NJ Preventive Cardiology practice brochure

 

There is a large number of the US adult population at high risk. To treat them to optimal goals using evidence-based therapies requires more than primary care physicians. For decades, primary care physicians have been primarily responsible for heart attack and stroke preventions. The field of cardiovascular disease prevention has evolved into a complex but highly effective science that can identify patients at risk many years before an event occurs. Personalized preventive therapies to halt disease progression and even induce disease regression is now available. This current primary care model is not adequate to combat heart disease and stroke effectively. It is estimated that there are over 40 million Americans eligible for optimal preventive medical therapies to defined numerical treatment goals. This large volume of patients is unmanageable by PCP system. Deaths, disabilities, hospitalizations, heart bypass surgeries and stents at a cost of many tens of billions annually - a significant contributor to the escalating healthcare cost. Advanced heart attack and stroke prevention is a specialized service for high risk patients that can augment primary care physicians' efforts to prevent or significantly delay most heart attacks and strokes.

Performance of Primary Care Physicians: The L-TAP Study examined the performance of  primary care physicians nationwide in successfully treating high risk patients to LDL cholesterol goal of less than 100 mg/dl. The study selected physicians who were in the top quartile in terms of prescribing statin and analyzed the number of patients with coronary heart disease who were treated to the recommended goal. Surprisingly, only 18%were at goal; 72% were not at goal - either treated inadequately or not al all.

 

 

Performance of university faculty physicians and resident physicians. The above study involved 113 faculty members and resident physicians and 2,884 patients. One group of physicians was given special training and PDAs with specialized program to help them treat more patients to goal and the other group of physicians was not given any training or PDAs. At the end of 18 months, there was no difference between the two groups and both did poorly.

 

 

Not all specialized clinics perform well. A two year, randomized, controlled study conducted at the Henry Ford Heart and Vascular Institute did not show any significant difference in lipid levels and clinical outcomes between their specialized lipid clinic and conventional care. Click here for more.

NJ Preventive Cardiology and Cholesterol Clinic successfully treats 85% high risk patients to goal. To date, this remains the best published performance treatment data. Our event rate dropped significantly after three years and the decline continued. A decade later, the event reduction was large with excellent patient outcomes and lower healthcare cost. Click here for the LDL distribution comparison between the L-TAP Study and NJ Preventive Cardiology.

 

 

  Large cardiovascular event reduction is achievable. NJ Preventive Cardiology has been providing comprehensive optimal preventive medical therapy and helping patients adapt positive lifestyle changes for a decade now. How much total event reduction is possible after a decade of comprehensive optimal preventive medical therapy and positive lifestyle changes? Only one trial (FATS Trial) gave a ten-year follow up study - very large reductions in cardiovascular deaths (93%) and coronary events (72%) as shown above. Fewer heart attacks and strokes = lower healthcare cost.