Evidence-Based Resources Help Guide Treatment Options

More than 600,000 American men and women die from cardiovascular disease every year, and about half of all Americans have a condition that puts them at high risk, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes. To ensure that you and your patients have unbiased information comparing treatment options for cardiovascular conditions, the California Association for Nurse Practitioners has partnered with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Through its Effective Health Care Program, AHRQ offers free research summaries for both clinicians and patients that provide evidence-based treatment comparisons in easy-to-understand, readable formats.

• Clinician research summaries serve as at-a-glance resources to help you compare the effectiveness and safety of treatment options and the strength of available evidence.
• Companion patient resources in English and Spanish help patients learn more about their condition, compare treatment options, and prepare to discuss with you which option is best for their particular situation.

Additional resources on these topics include free, accredited continuing medical education/continuing education (CME/CE) activities and educational slide sets. To order free print copies of clinician and patient research summaries, call the AHRQ Publications Clearinghouse at 800-358-9295 and provide code C-02 when ordering.

AHRQ’s Effective Health Care Program is a leading federal effort to compare treatments for health conditions and make findings public. The program provides unbiased, evidence-based information about the comparative benefits and risks of treatments, which helps doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other clinicians work together with individual patients to make more informed treatment decisions. Additional resources from AHRQ are available at www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov.

Research summaries for clinicians include:

Diagnosing and Treating Heart Disease

• Noninvasive Technologies for Diagnosing Coronary Artery Disease in Women
• Adding ACEIs and/or ARBs to Standard Therapy for Stable Ischemic Heart Disease: Benefits and Harms
• Adjunctive Devices in PCI To Remove Thrombi or Protect Against Distal Embolization in Patients With ACS

Treating and Managing High Blood Pressure and Cholesterol

• Effectiveness of Self-Measured Blood Pressure Monitoring in Adults With Hypertension 
• ACEIs, ARBs, or DRI for Adults With Hypertension
• Use Versus Nonuse of Dietary Supplements in Adults Taking Cardiovascular Drugs

Other Topics

• Radiofrequency Ablation for Atrial Fibrillation: Clinician's Guide
• Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis in Orthopedic Surgery

These resources are provided through CANP’s partnership with AHRQ, providing free evidence-based resources that summarize the benefits and risks of different treatment options for common health conditions based on comparative effectiveness research. For more information, visit effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov or sign up for AHRQ's newsletter, the EHC Inside Track.