In a recent study, researchers developed a state-wide network of health care professionals in urban, suburban, and rural areas.
The network contains health data of people who are at higher risk of heart disease.
Primary care doctors across the state could use the network to help these people reduce their risk.
The research was conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Currently, in the U.S., nearly all patients have digital data.
It is possible to use this information to find people who are at high risk of heart disease earlier before they come into the doctor’s office.
Early detection could help improve treatment and save people’s lives.
However, due to the lack of sophisticated information systems and processes, doctors could not quickly find the patient risk for care.
In the current study, the team used electronic health records to determine that tens of thousands of people across North Carolina were at high risk of developing heart disease.
They used health data from 219 primary care clinics. Among these clinics, 52% are in rural areas.
The team totally examined 345,440 primary care patients age 40 to 79.
Among these participants, 108,515 lacked cholesterol data on their electronic health care records. This makes it hard to determine their precise heart disease risk.
The team then analyzed the data from the rest 236,925 patients who had cholesterol numbers and all other criteria.
This helped the team to create an equation to estimate the cholesterol levels of patients with missing cholesterol data.
Using this method, the researchers found 43,205 patients were at high risk of heart disease, even though they had never been checked before.
In another analysis, the team also plugged in very conservative cholesterol numbers for the patients who lacked such data: 170 mg/dl total cholesterol and 50 mg for HDL.
Based on other factors like an exercise regimen, weight, smoking status, diabetes, gender, the team found 40,565 patients whose cholesterol data were missing were at high risk of heart disease.
The researchers suggest these people could be treated with interventions such as aspirin or statins.
The new findings could help primary care doctors use the latest evidence to improve the heart health of millions of Americans.
The researchers suggest that whether doctors are part of a large health system or in a small rural practice, they can use the health data to find patients who are at high risk of heart disease before they make an appointment.
Doctors can meet these patients and help them reduce their risk. This can save these people from heart attacks and strokes.
The leader of the study is Sam Cykert, MD, professor of medicine.
The study is published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
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