Cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes account for the majority of morbidity and mortality of the citizens in the state of Colorado. As Colorado’s population becomes older, more overweight and sedentary, the need for community-based interventions to address the health issues associated with this changing demographic becomes evident.

CPC's mission is to identify citizens at high risk for cardiovascular disease and to reduce this risk through intensive modification of known atherosclerotic risk factors. The focus is on patients with known coronary artery disease, peripheral arterial disease, ischemic stroke, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and hypertension. In all of these individuals, aggressive treatment of atherosclerotic risk factors has been shown to greatly reduce the risk of subsequent heart attack, stroke and vascular death. Prevention interventions also reduce disability and improve functional capacity.

Prevention Program Goals

Multiple studies suggest that despite wide dissemination of guidelines, few patients are appropriately managed for cardiovascular disease and diabetes and, therefore, do not receive the benefits of proven treatment strategies. Hence, the goals of CPC’s prevention programs are to:

• Expand our signature "Bridge The Gap" program to identify individuals statewide with cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, tobacco dependence, hypertension and hyperlipidemia and reduce their subsequent risks through intensive modification of known risk factors for each disorder.
• Develop accessible, cost effective and comprehensive intervention strategies that physician providers and patients can use to improve cardiovascular health.
• Strengthen the community-based interventions that address the prevention needs of medically underserved communities.
• Create an infrastructure to support future development and funding for programs.
• Establish community and statewide partnerships that support clinical guideline adherence and cardiovascular prevention programs. One example of this partnership is that CPC is analyzing the impact on heart attack risk of a smoking ordinance in collaboration with the Pueblo Health Department.

Bridge the Gap

To address the gap in translating research into practice, CPC created "Bridge The Gap ," a prevention program designed to ensure that evidence-based findings from research studies are applied in the day-to-day practice of medicine. The program combines a patient intervention with practical treatment algorithms and educational lectures by recognized leaders in the field of cardiovascular disease prevention.

Phase I of the "Bridge the Gap" program was conducted in 12 Denver-based primary care offices. CPC evaluated the effects of a targeted physician intervention on the frequency of ordering lipid profiles, prescribing appropriate lipid-lowering medications and achieving optimal LDL cholesterol levels. This program has been completed and demonstrated a significant improvement in quality of care among nearly 900 diabetic patients. In 2004, CPC expanded the program to address all cardiovascular risk factors through the development of a novel, touch-screen program that generates an individualized cardiac risk assessment.

Patient Education Kiosk Program

Under the direction of Dr. Thomas MacKenzie, CPC has developed expertise in using interactive computer kiosks to educate patients about health risks, such as cigarette smoking and inappropriate antibiotic use. The success of prior programs has led to the deployment of multiple cardiovascular prevention education kiosks (Health-e-Solutions) to practice sites in Denver and eight antibiotic education kiosks to emergency departments in four cities across the United States. In addition, four Health-e-Solutions kiosks are being deployed in Pueblo County by capitalizing on our growing relationship with the Southeastern Area Health Education Center (AHEC) and the Pueblo Community Diabetes Project. The four community sites are: Rawlings (Main) Library, Board of Water Works, Pueblo County Courthouse, and Occhiato Student Center at CSU-Pueblo. These kiosks represent an essential component of CPC's two-pronged approach to behavior change in both public places and in physicians' offices.

Other prevention programs

• eQuit, a program developing interactive computer software designed to help smokers quit.
• We also conduct limited community outreach programs, which are funded by unrestricted grants and donations.

Strengths

The strengths of the CPC are our ability to design, conduct, evaluate, and implement prevention interventions in community settings.

Our center's study resources include:

• Nationally and internationally recognized physician researchers.
• A medical clinic staffed by registered nurses and certified medical technicians.
• Project managers and site monitors experienced with managing and running clinical trials.
• A data coordinating center to collect, input, and analyze data generated from prevention research.
• Affiliations with some of the major medical research and healthcare providers in Colorado.

With these resources, we are able to design programs that impact disease in the community and to provide a rigorous scientific evaluation of the outcomes of our prevention programs.

Make a Contribution

If you would like to help us continue these research-based prevention efforts, opportunities are available for foundations and individuals.