Abstract
Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is the most common type of heart disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. The majority of ASCVD risk factors are modifiable, and current guidelines recommend use of an ASCVD 10-year risk estimate to guide primary prevention efforts. This has yet to become the standard in practice for primary care providers. The purpose of this quality improvement project was to implement use of the ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus (ASCVD+) tool to estimate 10-year ASCVD risk, identify individual risk factors, and facilitate shared decision making for ASCVD naïve patients ages 40-75, by a primary care provider at a family practice clinic in central Nebraska.
Project aims were to increase provider knowledge of the 2019 ACC/AHA Guideline on the Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and use of the ASCVD+ app, implement ASCVD+ app utilization, collect and evaluate data on tool use, 10-year ASCVD risk, individual risk factors, risk reduction recommendations, and shared decision making, and develop a project sustainability plan.|Keywords: Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, risk estimation, risk factors, primary prevention, quality improvement, primary care provider