Check in with a Heart Health Check this Heart Week

This year’s Heart Week, that runs from 3-9 May 2021, presents an opportunity for healthcare professionals to engage with patients about their risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD).

The Heart Foundation’s focus this Heart Week is on supporting health professionals to deliver more Heart Health Checks to eligible patients, a vital step to empower people to look after their heart health.

Heart Foundation Senior Heart Health Coordinator Andrea Love, said it is vital to prioritise heart health this week and every week.

“76,500 CVD-related events could be prevented with a heart health check,” Ms Love said.

“Within general practice the Heart Health Check is a relative new item number and takes about 20 minutes to complete,” Ms Love said.

From 1 April 2019, two MBS items were introduced to allow GPs and medical practitioners (other than a specialist of consultant physicians) to conduct a heart health check.

Ms Love said the COVID-19 pandemic had made people more aware of how important health is—and makes a case for the prevention of chronic disease.

“People who live with cardiovascular disease have increased vulnerability to severe complications of COVID-19 and the issues we had (during the height of the pandemic) were people avoiding regular consultations.”

“Now we have the vaccine rollout and people are coming into their GPs to be vaccinated. They could also ask about a heart health check in order to maximise on visits to primary care.”

On Wednesday 5 May, the Heart Foundation will host the Heart Week webinar, Driving Best Practice CVD Prevention in a Post-COVID World.

Ms Love said the webinar would be relevant to all clinicians.

“We have a really great panel and the main topic will be how COVID-19 has impacted CVD health and the strategies that complement the CVD risk approach,” she said.

One of the complementary strategies that GPs are encouraged to talk to at-risk patients about, is the My health for life program, designed to help Queenslanders stay well and lessen their risk of developing conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Ms Love said My health for life offers patients a lifestyle-based intervention that complements other therapies that their clinicians might suggest.

For more information on the Heart Foundation webinar, visit the Zoom registration page.

On Thursday 13 May, the PHN is hosting a complimentary quality improvement focused webinar, Cardiovascular Disease in Primary Care, for practice staff. Registration is essential. For more information, visit the PHN website.

Health professionals can download the Heart Foundation’s Heart Health Check Toolkit from their website.