Timely follow-up is important for those with elevated cardiovascular risk. For patients with elevated blood pressure, at least monthly follow-up is recommended until the blood pressure is controlled. For smokers, routine follow-up is also recommended for patients interested in quitting. Below are resources to assist primary care teams in implementing a process to ensure every patient receives an opportunity for timely follow-up.
The process maps and flowchart provide examples of how to integrate this into current workflow (Resources 1 and 2). Please review and modify the staff-led cardiovascular visit template (Resource 3) to fit your practice. Resource 4 can be printed for use by staff performing the cardiovascular focused follow-up visit to remind them about common medication side effects and when to draw labs on selected patients. Resource 5 is a 15 minute video clip from a webinar for our quality improvement project describing the importance of timely follow-up and how to implement it into practice.
Resource 1: Process Map for Blood Pressure Follow-up
Resource 2: Tobacco Cessation Flowchart Using the 5As Model
Resource 3: Cardiovascular Health Follow-up Visit Template