{"id":13255,"date":"2023-03-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icesontario.wpengine.com\/news-releases\/less-frequent-cholesterol-testing-puts-patients-heart-health-at-risk-new-study-finds\/"},"modified":"2023-06-14T18:13:17","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T22:13:17","slug":"less-frequent-cholesterol-testing-puts-patients-heart-health-at-risk-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"news_release","link":"https:\/\/www.ices.on.ca\/fr\/news-releases\/less-frequent-cholesterol-testing-puts-patients-heart-health-at-risk-new-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Less frequent cholesterol testing puts patients\u2019 heart health at risk, new study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patients treated by family physicians with lower clinical volumes and less frequent cholesterol testing have the highest rate of major cardiovascular events compared to physicians with the highest clinical volume, according to a new study led by a team from the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (PMCC) at University Health Network (UHN), ICES<\/strong>, and Women’s College Hospital.<\/p>\n

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\nCardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in North America. While research has established that the volume of patient visits to clinicians is associated with better health outcomes after heart attack or heart failure, but it is unclear whether patient volume at the primary care level—where most preventive care and testing takes place—could impact patient care and improve cardiovascular outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n“Adherence to blood cholesterol screening and testing is an important preventive cardiovascular care measure,” says lead author Jacob Udell<\/a>, a cardiologist with the Department of Medicine at Women’s College Hospital and the University Health Network, adjunct scientist with ICES, and clinician scientist with the Women’s College Research Institute. “This study provides insight into the relationship between a family doctor’s patient visit volume and their adherence to cholesterol testing and treatment guidelines.” <\/p>\n

\nThe study, published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology<\/em>, evaluated categories of clinical volume (defined as the annual number of visits made by patients to their family doctor) for approximately 10,000 primary care providers in Ontario, Canada. The researchers also examined a cohort of over 4.7 million adult residents of Ontario and found that:<\/p>\n