HEALTH TECH
SHIV GAGLANI
A Review of the ACC’s Clinical
Guidelines App
E
arlier this year I reviewed the Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD) Risk
Estimator app that was published by ACC. I
concluded the review by recommending it due to its
ease of use and immediate qualitative and quantitative feedback, which is why I was pleased to learn
that the ACC had released another app in November:
the Clinical Guidelines App. This app was released as
part of the ACC’s commitment to providing physicians trustworthy and actionable educational material
at the point-of-care. Before we delve into the app itself,
let’s take a moment to understand why the clinical
guidelines are so important.
According to the 2008 report, “Improving Physician Adherence to Clinical Practice Guidelines,” from
the New England Healthcare Institute (NEHI), “adults
receive only about half of the right care at the right
time…We can provide better care and care at a lower
cost through the use of clinical guidelines.” Fortunately, the report found that cardiologists are among the
most likely to adhere to guidelines than other physicians, with 70% of surveyed cardiologists falling into
the action/adherence phase of using clinical guidelines
compared to 47% of primary care providers, 34% of
other specialists, and 25% of orthopedists. That being
said, the report also notes that a key barrier to the
practice of evidence-based medicine and the successful use of clinical guidelines is “insufficient access to
guidelines at the point of care.”1
While guidelines can be accessed in multiple
formats and locations, such as the National Guideline Clearinghouse from the Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality (AHRQ), the ACC realized
that many physicians would benefit from a mobile
solution similar to their ASCVD Risk Estimator app.
The ACC’s Clinical Guidelines app, which is available for free on both the Apple App and Google Play
stores, aims to address this need.
The app allows clinicians to access guideline
recommendations on the following three topics,
with two more at the bottom of the list planned to
be released in the near future:
• Assessment of Cardiovascular Risk (CV)
• Heart Failure (HF)
• Treatment of Blood Cholesterol (CHOL)
• Atrial Fibrillation (AF)
• Valvular Heart Disease (VHD)
CardioSource.org/CSWN
Understanding that a simple mobile-optimized website could also
be used to present guidelines,
the developers added greater
functionality to this app so that
it extends well