April 3, 2011
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The town of New Ulm, Minn., some 90 miles outside of Minneapolis, is small. With a population of about 15,000, the self-proclaimed polka capital of the U.S. might not seem like the most obvious locale to roll out an aggressive, unconventional attack on heart disease.
But for the past couple years, a local health system has been doing just that, using an array of preventive health tactics that include everything from state-of-the-art electronic health records to free water aerobics classes.
Early results suggest that the preventive health program has been working. In the some 10,000 adults in the target zip code (56073), the rate of acute heart attacks fell by 24 percent in 15 months, according to research presented this week at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans. Fewer than 50 people in the area suffered a heart attack in 2008—before the reduction efforts kicked in—so the stats are slight, but the approach could have implications for larger population bases.
The program "encourages a large population to embrace healthy lifestyle changes, such as smoking cessation and improved nutrition that could improve long-term health," Jackie Boucher, of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, said in a prepared statement. Area residents can join an organized walking group, take a cooking class or participate in workplace health screening.
Rather than relying on a government grant, the community-driven project is supported by the region’s health care system—along with help from local employers and organizations—Boucher said. Most residents are served by the New Ulm Medical Center, which is run by Allina Hospitals & Clinics, a not-for-profit regional system with a 2010 operating revenue of $3.1 billion. This business-backed model might become more common as government programs see their budgets shrink. Although the initiative has been pegged at about $40 million, it could help cut medical costs in the long run. In 2010, treating heart disease in the U.S. cost about $272.5 billion—a price tag that is expected to triple by 2030.
Before the interventions began, researchers found that some 36 percent of New Ulm residents had metabolic syndrome—and 73 percent were overweight or obese. To help combat these steep cardiovascular risk factors, the health care system used another robust local statistic: more than 90 percent of people there have an Allina electronic health record, "which serves as a helpful surveillance database," Boucher said. So doctors were able to start quickly pinpointing individuals who were at high risk for a heart attack and help them better track their health by monitoring cholesterol, blood pressure and medication.
With a goal of cutting heart attacks down the zero, the program aims to get residents out of that high-risk category in the first place by helping them make key lifestyle changes. "Preventive care is the number one factor responsible for reducing cardiovascular mortality in the United States over the past 20 years," Thomas Knickelbine, a cardiologist at the Minneapolis Heart Institute, said in a prepared statement.
And by in large the locals seemed willing to participate. Some 5,198 adults were screened for the program in 2009, and more than 1,000 people attended at least one related community health event, such as a workplace seminar or activity.
The project might "serve as a model of how health care systems can implement population-based [chronic heart disease] prevention programs to improve associated health care costs, quality and patient experiences," the researchers noted in a summary of their study.
And the group has plans to continue assessing the program’s progress for a full decade. No word, however, on whether the town’s famous Oktoberfest has switched to turkey brats.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto/Sparky2000
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24% of less than 50 people is less than a dozen people. Frankly, not a confirmation of anything.
Link to thisUmmm, Massha, the numbers over which the study ran were plenty large…. I’m not sure how many people you expect to get heart attacks in one year out of 10k, but I think you aren’t supposed to pretend the sample size was the 50, it was the 10k that first produced the 50, then produced the 24% fewer… it is a significant drop, but even the article mentioned that further years of study were in the works, so your "frank" opinions will have more data to mull over as time goes by.
Link to thisI agree with tharriss’ comment. It’s unimpressive to take those numbers at face value, but think about it: 50 out of 10,000 cases is not an insignificant number. Unfortunately, the article didn’t offer a reference to compare it to for another state but for a small town, so we can only assume that this is significant enough for stakeholders to take action on it. Most reported incidence of disease is also commonly under-reported anyways.
Cardiovascular disease is the number 1 killer in the US, and we know that a bunch of risk factors (diabetes, obesity, smoking) are controllable so it is definitely worth a try to use preventable programs to manage risk. This sounds like a pilot program to me, so if established in a large city perhaps with particular target groups (such as low-income households), large beneficial implications can be met. In fact, I predict a long-term dominoes effect for such a program. Imagine that for every 1 person who participates, this person spreads the knowledge and lifestyle to 2 other people, who follows in the same footsteps.
There’s nothing wrong with more education for the populace.
Link to thisAnother lesson that should be derived from such examples is just how easy it is to improve one’s health with a few commonsense and well-known adjustments to our lifestyles.
Link to thisThe amount of "low-hanging fruit" in such matters boggles the mind. All it takes for us to pick it is a little reaching…
Pre study deaths 50 of 10,000, 24% drop means only 38 deaths. Cost of intervention $40 million or $3.3 million per life saved. People get excited about new programs, and it doesn’t take much to limit the inflammation which causes heart attacks, if data collected down the road shows a continuing decline in deaths, they may have a winner. If the people in this study decide that eating donuts and watching TV is better than exercising and cutting out empty carbs, not surprising as long term lifestyle changes are tough to make.
Link to thisPreventive Medicine works and is the only form of sustainable medicine.
Link to this-Brandon Colby, MD (http://ow.ly/4sM6Z)
Ayurveda Indian medicine system always given importance to life style for healthy living.Ayurveda developed three thousand year back.It persistently. teach how to live healthy living without medicine.Ayurveda use minimum medicine give importance to exercises, healthy food and family life.Western civilization imposed chemical medicine on people.All western pharmacopoeia have a treble side effect on the contrary Ayurveda medicine are prepare from herb no side effect
Link to this