Thousands of general practices across Australia will have access to a more comprehensive cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment to identify patients who may otherwise be slipping through the gaps.
Close to 5,000 general practices now have access at point of care to absolute CVD risk assessment and management templates that link to patient records through the MyGPMPtool (MGT), a software application available on Topbar.
Heart Foundation Risk Reduction Manager, Natalie Raffoul, says the templates and new functionality within MGT allow for a more comprehensive absolute CVD risk assessment compared with the existing Australian online calculator.
"The templates from the Heart Foundation's Heart Health Check Toolkit, which are embedded in MGT and Topbar software, mean risk factor information from patient records is automatically drawn and pre-filled during an absolute CVD risk assessment," Ms Raffoul said.
"This means that patient records can be used to identify people who may be at clinically determined at high risk of CVD, including patients with diabetes or microalbuminuria.
"This is an advantage over the existing online Australian absolute CVD risk calculator and addresses previous concerns that these patients may be slipping through the gaps."
The embedded 'Heart Health Check Risk Assessment' and 'My Healthy Heart Plan' templates are available on the MGT app, with free access to all general practices using the Topbar clinical support platform or the browser-based version of MGT.
"Having the templates from the Heart Health Check Toolkit built into GP software is a big advantage, as it frees up time for GPs and practice nurses by making it easier to treat patients who are most at risk of CVD," Ms Raffoul said.
"Using the templates within MGT streamlines the delivery of absolute CVD risk assessments by removing duplication as patient data is drawn from the patient record to create comprehensive documents.
"All outputs align with requirements of the 699 and 177 Heart Health Check MBS items and current clinical guidelines."
Since the Heart Foundation launched the Heart Health Check Toolkit for general practice at the end of February 2021, almost 18,000 people have accessed the resources.
CEO of Modern Innovations (the parent company of MGT) and founder of MGT, Dr Dan Wijeratne said: "We are pleased to have worked with the Heart Foundation to embed these useful Heart Health Check templates into our MGT app. MGT is designed to improve the efficiency and productivity in all aspects of chronic disease management and prevention; this new solution has made the Heart Health Check easy and efficient, addressing some key barriers to integrating preventative care in general practice."
