ProCare combats cardiovascular disease

ProCare combats cardiovascular disease with award-winning software

Up to 24,000 ProCare patients at risk of heart disease and stroke have benefited from the TUANZ award-winning, revolutionary new software system, Predict CVD-Diabetes, in the past year.

Predict CVD-Diabetes won the TUANZ Innovation of the Year Award 2006 last week for its developer, software company Enigma. The product has been developed in close collaboration with ProCare, the Auckland University School of Population Health, the National Heart Foundation and Counties Manukau District Health Board.

ProCare clinical director Dr Peter Didsbury says the software enables ProCare GPs and practice nurses to assess a patient’s risks. The software then identifies, through tailored guidelines, what each patient can do to minimise their risk of heart disease and diabetes, and a “wellness plan” is created for them.

“Heart disease is very preventable and assessing the baseline risk is the first step in deciding how to best to reduce the overall risk. Some people need only to change lifestyle factors, such as following a cardio-protective (“heart –friendly”) diet. While individuals with higher risk benefit from drug therapy such as medicines to lower their cholesterol or blood pressure. Predict CVD-Diabetes guides the patient and their doctor or nurse through these choices. The end result will be a reduction in heart disease,” says Dr Didsbury.

In presenting the award, the TUANZ judges noted that they were looking for a New Zealand product that offered benefits to a significant number of people and the extent of Enigma’s collaboration with the health sector was important to this.

Predict CVD-Diabetes is based around national guidelines on cardiovascular disease and diabetes developed by the New Zealand Guidelines Group. Dr Didsbury, who is also the chairman of the New Zealand Guidelines Group, says he is very pleased to see these best practice guidelines being used in an electronic format.

“It is a great advance as the guidance is tailored for each patient who then receives a personalised wellness plan.”

“Evaluations have shown Predict to be well accepted by different ethnic groups and it has significantly increased the number of ProCare patients having heart risk assessments. We expect that this will translate into a significant - potentially 30 percent - reduction in heart disease,” says Dr Didsbury.

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