Community heart screening reduces costs

A major UK study involving more than 4,000 people has demonstrated the potential of taking comprehensive cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk screening beyond traditional healthcare settings and into communities, identifying significant levels of CVD risk and unmet prevention needs.

The peer reviewed study, published in leading scientific journal PLOS ONE, evaluated community based CVD screening using the PocDoc Healthy Heart Check across a diverse real world cohort of 4,256 people in the North East of England.

The research was funded by SBRI Healthcare and delivered through a collaboration between PocDoc, Health Innovation North East and North Cumbria and Howbeck Healthcare, with screening taking place across community, workplace, pharmacy and home settings.

In targeted community outreach, testing was taken directly into places including shopping centres, leisure centres, churches and mosques, football stadiums, women’s groups, foodbanks, asylum seeker forums, farmers’ markets and Traveller events.

The study found that:

45% of participants reported they had not had a health check including a cholesterol test in the previous five years.
One in five (20%) participants for whom a QRISK3 score could be calculated had a score of 10% or higher, meaning they were at high risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event within the next ten years.
60% of those identified as being at high CVD risk were not receiving lipid lowering therapy at the time of screening.
35% of all participants had total cholesterol levels of 5 mmol/L or above.

The findings provide significant new real world evidence that comprehensive CVD risk assessment, that combines point of care lipid testing with QRISK3 assessment, can be delivered outside traditional primary care settings and identify people with elevated CVD, helping to address unmet prevention needs.

The publication comes as NICE begins a formal evaluation of point of care lipid tests for use in cardiovascular risk assessment in primary and community care. The PocDoc Healthy Heart Check is among the technologies being assessed for use across settings including general practice, community pharmacies and outreach services.

It uses a finger prick blood test and smartphone app to provide a full cholesterol profile alongside heart age and cardiovascular risk in under ten minutes. Its AI analyses an image of the test captured through a smartphone camera, helping people understand their results and connecting them with appropriate follow up and clinical pathways.

CVD remains one of the UK’s biggest health challenges, while the NHS Health Check programme is designed to identify people at increased risk before they develop serious disease. However, the PLOS ONE paper notes that only 27% of eligible people have received an NHS Health Check within the previous five years, with uptake substantially lower in some areas.

Julia Newton, Medical Advisor, Health Innovation NENC commented: “CVD is one of the biggest health threats in our region, so ensuring we reach hard to reach groups is a priority. By taking screening directly into community settings, this programme has identified people with elevated CVD risk that otherwise might have been missed, and it has proven that this can be done at scale.

It adds important real world evidence to the growing conversation around how we make preventive care for heart disease more accessible and bring services closer to the communities that need them.”

Steve Roest, CEO and co-founder of PocDoc, said: “This research highlights the important role technology can play in reaching communities that may be less likely to engage with traditional healthcare settings.

Digital diagnostics such as the Healthy Heart Check make testing more convenient and provide results almost immediately, helping to remove some of the barriers to assessing cardiovascular risk. Evidence such as this is important in demonstrating the potential of these technologies, and we hope to see more initiatives across the UK building on this approach and making prevention more accessible.”

The study was a proof of concept, observational study designed to assess whether community based point of care screening could identify people at elevated cardiovascular risk. The researchers said the findings provide a rationale for further controlled studies examining clinical outcomes, health inequalities, health service use and cost effectiveness.

A separate peer reviewed economic evaluation of the programme has also been accepted for publication and will examine the cost effectiveness of community based lipid testing across settings including pharmacies, workplaces and the community.