Heartwatch: an Irish cardiovascular secondary prevention programme in primary care, a secondary analysis of patient outcomes

OBJECTIVES: To investigate patient follow-up data from Heartwatch: Ireland’s secondary prevention programme for cardiovascular disease delivered in general practice. DESIGN: Retrospective descriptive study based on secondary analysis of routinely collected data from Heartwatch. SETTING: Heartwatch targeted 20% of general practices in Ireland and recruited 475 general practitioners across 325 practices. PARTICIPANTS: The patient population included people with a history of acute myocardial infarction, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or a coronary artery bypass graft. Over 16 000 patients entered the programme however, to assess the long-term progress of patients, we identified a cohort of 5700 patients with at least 8 years in the programme. INTERVENTIONS: A standard protocol for continuing care of patients for the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease was administered by general practices. The programme was designed using WHO and European Society of Cardiology guidelines on secondary prevention. OUTCOME MEASURES: A Continuing Care (CCare) score out of eight was the primary outcome measure used. It was calculated based on programme targets for well-known cardiovascular risk factors: exercise, systolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, optimally controlled glucose, smoking status, and pharmacological treatment. RESULTS: After 1 year, 37% of the 8-year cohort had achieved a CCare score >5 increasing to 44% after year 8. Patient sex was predictive of better scores; male patients had almost a half-point advantage (0.432, 99% CI: 0.335 to 0.509). Patients who enrolled earlier following their qualifying event and patients with more frequent visits were also more likely to achieve higher CCare scores. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, patients are not likely to meet all targets set by secondary prevention guidelines, however, supporting patient self-management may impact on this. Early enrolment after a cardiac event and frequent structured care visits should be priorities in the design and implementation of similar programmes. Ongoing evaluation of them is necessary to improve outcomes.