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Asthma increases heart disease risk
Having asthma increases a person’s risk of heart disease by a third, according to a study presented at the American Heart Association’s 41st Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention in San Antonio. Researchers found that nonsmoking patients with asthma were 33% more likely to develop — or die of — heart disease than nonsmoking patients without asthma.
"This means that asthmatic patients and their doctors should be particularly careful," says Carols Iribarren, MD, MPH, PhD, a researcher with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, CA, and one of the study’s lead investigators. "Not only about managing their asthma, but also about managing cardiovascular risk factors such as blood cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar," he explains.
Iribarren’s research used data collected over the last 20 years among members of the Northern California Kaiser Permanente Medical Care program, one region of the nation’s largest nonprofit HMOs. "The reason to study nonsmokers is to rule out the strong influence of smoking on both asthma and heart disease," he notes. "This is an important question because asthma affects about 6% of the general population, and heart disease continues to be the leading cause of death in the United States."
Software identifies high-risk patients
MEDecision in Wayne, PA, recently released CaseAlert, a software system that enables managed care organizations to analyze provider, facility, and pharmacy data to identify high-risk and high-cost patients.
The predictive software identifies both patients already at risk and those likely to be at risk. It also stratifies members for purposes of referring them to appropriate care management services. The software processes information from Oracle data repositories and is compatible with other MEDecision products including its claims and care management software solutions.
For more information on CaseAlert, call (610) 254-0202, or e-mail [email protected]. Information on the product is also available on the company web site: www.MEDecision.com.
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