Examinando por Autor "Eric Zuniga"

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    HEARTS in the Americas appraisal checklist and clinical pathway for comprehensive hypertension management in primary care
    (2022) Andres Rosende; Donald DiPette; Jeffrey Brettler; Gonzalo Rodríguez; Eric Zuniga; Kenneth Connell; Pedro Ordunez
    Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity in the Region of the Americas, and hypertension represents its main risk factor. However, population hypertension control rates in the Region are poor. Global Hearts is the World Health Organization's flagship initiative to reduce the burden of cardiovascular diseases. HEARTS in the Americas Initiative is its regional adaptation that seeks to be the cardiovascular disease risk management model, including hypertension and diabetes, in primary health care throughout the Americas by 2025. HEARTS in the Americas is being implemented in 22 countries and over 2 095 primary care centers. All implementing countries have defined their treatment protocols, and HEARTS in the Americas has supported continuous improvement. Because WHO recently released the 2021 Guideline for the Pharmacological Treatment of Hypertension in Adults and HEARTS in the Americas introduced the key drivers for hypertension control, the initiative generated a methodology to help countries update and strengthen their treatment protocols. This article describes the process of developing the treatment protocol appraisal checklist and defines the resulting clinical pathway. This tool can help countries and primary care centers to improve their protocols by identifying the improvement points and upgrading clinical pathways.
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    HEARTS in the Americas clinical pathway. Strengthening the decision support system to improve hypertension and cardiovascular disease risk management in primary care settings
    (2023) Andres Rosende; Donald J. DiPette; Ramon Martine; Jeffrey W. Brettler; Gonzalo Rodriguez; Eric Zuniga; Pedro Ordunez
    Background: HEARTS in the Americas is the regional adaptation of the WHO Global HEARTS Initiative. It is implemented in 24 countries and over 2,000 primary healthcare facilities. This paper describes the results of a multicomponent, stepwise, quality improvement intervention designed by the HEARTS in the Americas to support advances in hypertension treatment protocols and evolution towards the Clinical Pathway. Methods: The quality improvement intervention comprised: 1) the use of the appraisal checklist to evaluate the current hypertension treatment protocols, 2) a peer-to-peer review and consensus process to resolve discrepancies, 3) a proposal of a clinical pathway to be considered by the countries, and 4) a process of review, adopt/adapt, consensus and approval of the clinical pathway by the national HEARTS protocol committee. A year later, 16 participants countries (10 and 6 from each cohort, respectively) were included in a second evaluation using the HEARTS appraisal checklist. We used the median and interquartile scores range and the percentages of the maximum possible total score for each domain as a performance measure to compare the results pre and post-intervention. Results: Among the eleven protocols from the ten countries in the first cohort, the baseline assessment achieved a median overall score of 22 points (ICR 18 −23.5; 65% yield). After the intervention, the overall score reached a median of 31.5 (ICR 28.5 −31.5; 93% yield). The second cohort of countries developed seven new clinical pathways with a median score of 31.5 (ICR 31.5 −32.5; 93% yield). The intervention was effective in three domains: 1. implementation (clinical follow-up intervals, frequency of drug refills, routine repeat blood pressure measurement when the first reading is off-target, and a straightforward course of action). 2. treatment (grouping all medications in a single daily intake and using a combination of two antihypertensive medications for all patients in the first treatment step upon the initial diagnosis of hypertension) and 3. management of cardiovascular risk (lower BP thresholds and targets based on CVD risk level, and the use of aspirin and statins in high-risk patients). Conclusion: This study confirms that this intervention was feasible, acceptable, and instrumental in achieving progress in all countries and all three domains of improvement: implementation, blood pressure treatment, and cardiovascular risk management. It also highlights the challenges that prevent a more rapid expansion of HEARTS in the Americas and confirms that the main barriers are in the organization of health services: drug titration by non-physician health workers, the lack of long-acting antihypertensive medications, lack of availability of fixed-doses combination in a single pill and cannot use high-intensity statins in patients with established cardiovascular diseases. Adopting and implementing the HEARTS Clinical Pathway can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of hypertension and cardiovascular disease risk management programs