Health MOT plan could be cheaper
Monday April 26th, 2010
Health services could run effective screening programmes for heart disease by testing only high risk individuals, it was claimed today.
A new analysis says electronic patient records could be used to identify individuals at risk.
Researchers say this would be much cheaper than seeking to screen all adults between 40 and 74.
The British government has pledged to introduce health screening for all middle-aged adults over the age of 40.
The new study published in the British Medical Journal compared the programme with other methods - such as asking patients to fill in a questionnaire first or calling in all overweight patients.
The researchers concluded that using routine patient information, from their medical records, to select patients for screening is just as effective as screening everyone.
Campaigners warned that high risk patients might be the least likely to visit their doctor.
Judy O'Sullivan, a nurse with the British Heart Foundation, said: "People at high risk are often poorer or from ethnic minority backgrounds and are less likely to visit their GP for a health check so greater effort is needed to reach them.
"Whatever approach the health service takes they must make sure they not only find those who are at high risk but also those who are most vulnerable.
"Identifying people is just the first step, people also need to be supported to make life-long lifestyle changes to lower their risk of developing cardiovascular disease."
The researchers, led by Simon Griffin, of the Institute of Metabolic Science, Cambridge, UK, write: "A universal screening programme for cardiovascular disease might prevent an important number of new cardiovascular events in a population, but it may be unrealistic to implement in increasingly resource constrained health systems.
"Policy makers have to decide on the balance between the number of people needed to screen or treat and the number of cases that can be prevented in the population."
British Medical Journal on-line April 26 2010
Tags: General Health | Geriatric Health | Heart Health | NHS | UK News
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