7 July 2022
New CVD prescribing dashboard available now EPiC Cardiovascular Disease, published by Pharmac-sponsored educators He Ako Hiringa, is now available online and allows exploration of prescribing for secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. This is an area with significant disparities, and big gains can be made by improving medicine access for these patients. The dashboard allows users to easily see any gaps in their prescribing for patients who have had a CVD event, and provides commentary on best practice. EPiC CVD enables primary care clinicians to view data at the national, practice and personal prescribing levels. Like other EPiC themes, the data stories in CVD can be filtered by ethnicity, gender, age and deprivation quintile, allowing users to identify groups that may require additional medicines or support with their medicines. Evidence clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of triple therapy (an antithrombotic and medicines to lower lipids and blood pressure) at preventing secondary cardiovascular events. Despite this, only around half of patients receive triple therapy after a cardiovascular event. The data show us that: 1. Older people are more likely to have had a CVD event in the last 5 years EPiC CVD starts by looking at the prevalence of patients who have had a cardiovascular event in the last five years. The age filter shows the largest variation between groups nationally, with 14.4 per cent of patients aged 75 and older having experienced a cardiovascular event in the last five years compared with only 0.3 per cent of those aged 20–40. 2. Rates of triple therapy dispensing have declined for Māori and European/Other patients since 2017 In 2017, 57 per cent of Māori and European/Other patients who had experienced a CVD event in that year were dispensed triple therapy. By 2021, this had declined to 52 per cent of Māori patients and 51 per cent of European/Other patients.