Optimizing treatment of dyslipidemia in patients with coronary artery disease in the managed-care environment (the Rocky Mountain Kaiser Permanente experience).

Rocky Mountain Kaiser Permanente has taken aggressive steps to ensure optimal treatment of all modifiable cardiac risk factors, especially low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, in patients with coronary artery disease. In this article, we are presenting (1) the basic rationale for our approach, (2) the critical steps translating philosophy into practice, and (3) justification for all health plans to pursue a similar course. The continuum of physician-directed disease management systems that have evolved in our region-one administered by cardiology nurses in the perihospitalization period and the other by pharmacists in the long-term, outpatient setting-is then detailed. Although the relatively short duration that our comprehensive systems have been in place precludes any assessment of their impact on cardiac death, coronary artery disease events, or coronary artery disease procedure rates, the improvements in intermediate surrogate outcomes are promising. Virtually all surveyed patients participating in our management systems have been "very" or "extremely" satisfied with their experience. The LDL-cholesterol screening rate in the approximately 2,500 participants in the programs to date has reached 97%. Of these patients, 84% have LDL cholesterol <130 mg/dL and 48% <100 mg/dL, and only 15% of those few with LDL cholesterol >130 mg/dL (2.5% overall) are currently not receiving lipid-lowering therapy. The proportions of patients on aspirin/antiplatelet and beta-blocker therapy after myocardial infarction are 97% and 92%, respectively. The lipid-screening and treatment rates, especially, represent significant improvement from our own baseline, and compare favorably with outcomes from other practice settings. In conclusion, health maintenance organizations have tremendous incentive and the unique opportunity and ability to develop systems to better manage large numbers of individuals with coronary artery disease.

Methods of surveillance for HIV infection in primary care outpatients in the United States.

Primary care outpatients provide a good sentinel population for monitoring levels and trends of HIV infection in the United States. Because a broad cross section of the population seeks primary medical care, excess blood from specimens routinely collected for other purposes is available for anonymous, unlinked HIV testing, and all age groups and both sexes can be sampled. The CDC family of surveys includes two surveys of primary care outpatients: (a) a survey of 100,000 blood specimens per year submitted by more than 6,000 primary care physicians to a national diagnostic laboratory for complete blood count or hematocrit and (b) a survey of approximately 10,000 blood specimens per year from a network of 242 primary care physicians. Each survey has different advantages: the laboratory-based survey has a large sample from a large population base, and the physician network survey has a well-defined patient population in which each patient's clinical condition can be determined. In the primary care physician network, a concurrent study of clinical patterns of disease in patients with recognized HIV infection provides additional information on the clinical syndromes associated with HIV infection and estimates of the occurrence of unrecognized HIV infection.