Two relatively simple interventions — addressing high blood pressure (BP) and smoking cessation — could make a huge difference for patients with rheumatic disease. Patients with autoimmune disease are up to three times more likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) than the general population. In addition to compounding CVD, smoking is tied to the development of certain autoimmune conditions, as well as worse outcomes. Christie Bartels, MD, chief of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, has focused her research on improving cardiac health in inflammatory diseases. This news organization spoke with Bartels about two short interventions she developed that tackle hypertension and smoking cessation during regular visits, each taking less than 3 minutes.
How Do These Programs Address Cardiac Disease Prevention?
The BP and Quit Connect programs help clinics systematically address the two most modifiable risk factors for CVD: high BP and smoking. There’s also evidence that addressing these two risk factors improves outcomes in rheumatic diseases. Hypertension predicts an increase in lupus damage. Particularly in lupus nephritis, hypertension will increase the risk for CVD and kidney failure. People who use tobacco have worse outcomes in diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, and lupus, as well as more CVD, and antirheumatic drugs may not work as well.
University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health
Dr. Christie Bartels
In 90 seconds to 3 minutes, staff can do protocol-based care, which we’ve done across 20,000-plus visits. We showed we can improve population level rates of high BP and BP control, as well as increase smoking quitting rates across different patient settings.
What Is the Quit Connect Program?
The Quit Connect program is a 10- to 90-second point of care intervention. During rooming, staff (medical assistants and nurses) ask patients: “A) Do you smoke? and B) Have you thought about cutting back or quitting in the next 30 days?”
It turns out, when you ask the question that way, between a third and a half of people say that they’ve thought about cutting back or quitting. Then, we can get patients connected directly to Quitline, a free public service across all 50 states that smokers can use to get cessation support.
If patients are ready, we ask if we can arrange for them to receive a call from a Quitline coach about setting a quit date or receiving free nicotine replacement therapy. The beautiful thing is when that all happens, A) it’s free to the patient, and B) the results from the Quitline can be recorded right back to the electronic health record.
In our most recent publication in Arthritis Care & Research, we documented bringing Quit Connect to Grady Hospital in downtown Atlanta. It’s a safety net hospital, where 80% patients are Black and 70%-80% patients are on public insurance or uninsured. Using this protocol, we improved Quitline referrals 20-fold.
What Is the BP Connect Program?
At least half of the encounters in United States happen in specialty clinics. Unfortunately, when patients get their BP measured in a specialty clinic that’s not a cardiology or a vascular clinic, often, even if the pressure is high, the clinic doesn’t give patients feedback on that. The problem is because we haven’t said anything, that gives people the false reassurance that their BP is okay.
We’ve developed a 3-minute protocol to ask, advise, and connect. The idea is that if we measure a high BP, then we remeasure and confirm that it’s high. Then, we advise why it matters in rheumatic disease: Patients with rheumatic diseases are already at an increased risk for heart disease, and controlling BP can make a big difference. Then, we connect patients with high BP back to primary care.
Specifically, a SmartSet — an electronic medical record feature — prompts different actions based on confirmed high BP readings:
- If systolic BP ≥ 140-159, the SmartSet directs scheduling a visit to a nurse or primary care provider.
- If systolic BP ≥ 160-179, the next primary care visit anticipates the need to see a prescriber.
- If systolic BP ≥ 180, then the medical assistant or nurse at the visit is instructed to notify the provider who can arrange a provider-to-provider handoff for safety to exclude a hypertensive emergency.
That order goes to the scheduler to call primary care to coordinate follow-up. BP Connect doubled the likelihood of a guideline-recommended follow-up in primary care within 30 days. All patients benefited, and disparities decreased. BP Connect has had 1100 downloads, and both BP and Quit Connect programs are endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Million Hearts.
How Do These Programs Affect Clinical Practice?
We developed these interventions with a health system engineer, and we time stamped everything. Part of the sustainability of this model is that it fits within a regular workflow. As a practicing rheumatologist, I understand that time is a precious commodity.
The interventions are in partnership with frontline staff. We’ve received feedback that they feel pride participating in these initiatives. They can say, because of me, 30 patients followed up last month for high BP, or 10 patients took a referral to the Quitline last year. We celebrate these accomplishments with the staff.
What Are the Next Steps for These Programs?
Public-facing toolkits for both BP and Quit Connect programs are available online. We have implemented [these programs] in a rural setting, in an urban setting, in Milwaukee and in Atlanta, and we are looking in the future to do a larger, multistate implementation study. If folks are interested, we’d love to partner with them to look at disseminating this further.
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.