Changes lives through healthy-living programs

CPC programs help people take action to improve their health, and prevent heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Colorado Heart Healthy Solutions is a statewide program to prevent heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Community health workers reach out across the state: in barber shops, local coffee shops, worksites and even farm auctions to provide testing for heart disease and diabetes risk at no cost. The community health worker helps people find local resources to improve their health. The community health workers keep in touch with participants who need to make changes, to support them and help them get into a doctor or a walking club, or maybe a class to improve their diet. CPC designed this program with a cardiologist, nurses and experts in public health and through interaction with Colorado communities. All these partners continue to work together to make the program a success, and to support the community health workers in their outreach into our state. Colorado Heart Healthy Solutions is helping people live healthy lives through connections in their communities.

Community Heart Health Actions for Senior Latinos at Risk (CHARLAR)

CHARLAR is a 12 week cardiovascular disease and diabetes prevention program tailored specifically for older adult Latinos (50 years and older) residing in Northwest Denver. The program uses an evidence-based education curriculum based on the chronic disease prevention program Pasos Adelante (Steps Forward), developed by a collaborative partnership between Latino-serving community agencies and faculty at The University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. CHARLAR emphasizes risk factor awareness, diabetes education, and skill building for healthy eating and physical activity. Bilingual community health workers (promotoras) deliver the classes in both Spanish and English, and play a key role in bringing better health to the communities they work for. Due to shared ethnicity, language, socioeconomic status and cultural experience, promotoras are able to effectively recruitment participants, facilitate behavior change, and influence health decision making in the context of the family.

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Develops innovations in public health through technology

In Public settings: Health-e-Solutions is an interactive cardiovascular disease risk assessment delivered via a touchscreen computer kiosk. In less than 3 minutes, individuals obtain a customized heart disease risk score and recommendations to reduce their risk. Through a statewide grant, kiosks have been placed at health fairs, physician offices and public settings.

On Websites: Programs developed for the kiosk are also available on the internet for widespread access. Our cardiovascular risk assessment is online at www.health-e-solutions.org .

On the CPC website: Through our programs: Community health workers and promotores are trained to help people learn about their risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and to find suitable resources to improve health. To find out if there is a heart disease prevention program in your area, email us at prevention@cpcmed.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or go to our Colorado Heart Healthy Solutions website: http://www.hearthealthysolutions.org

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Educates Health Care Providers in heart disease prevention

Statewide: To improve how physicians apply guidelines in their practice, CPC developed easy-to-use algorithms for cardiovascular care based on reliable, current treatment and prevention guidelines. Algorithms have been created for atherosclerosis, cardiovascular risk assessment, LDL-cholesterol treatment, hypertension management, chronic heart failure and antiplatelet therapy. These algorithms became the basis for Colorado's Adult Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke Prevention guideline, created by The Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative.

In Doctors' offices: Selected doctors around the state receive cardiovascular disease management education from our cardiologist, Mori Krantz, and clinical algorithms to assist them in their day-to-day medical practice. If you want your practice to recieve this free, evidence-based guidance please email us at prevention@cpcmed.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and ask to be enrolled in our Colorado Heart Healthy Solutions provider education.

In the "classroom": Through collaboration, health profession students such as nurses, physician assistants and medical students gain real world experiences in disease prevention through volunteering in our community outreach programs. Students have opportunities to learn practical skills for helping people change behavior, such as motivational interviewing and conducting heart disease risk assessments.

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Impacts communities through Research

Statewide: CPC and the Pueblo Health Department studied the effect of a non-smoking ordinance on heart attack rates. In a before-and-after evaluation of hospital admissions for heart attack in the Pueblo area, heart attack admissions fell by 27% in the 18 months after the ban was in effect. The completed study appeared in the medical journal Circulation, October 2006, as well as in TIME magazine, Business Week, Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

In recognition of the importance of these findings, Colorado recently passed a non-smoking ordinance banning smoking in all public places including restaurants and bars. CPC has been working in a similar capacity in Greeley, Colorado as well.

In Hospitals: Nurses rock (but you knew that)! Dr. Mori Krantz recently completed a study with Denver Health and Hospital nurses, showing that heart failure patients managed by nurses had an 85% reduction in their re-hospitalization for heart failure and improved medication adherence.

In Doctors' offices: CPC researched how to improve the day-to-day practice of medicine in 12 Denver-area primary care offices . Practical treatment algorithms and lectures in cardiovascular disease prevention were provided. By helping doctors apply new findings to treat high cholesterol in diabetes, the risk of heart disease was significantly reduced among nearly 900 diabetic patients. Similar reductions in heart attacks were found in a CPC led study in Greeley, CO.

Increasing the impact of health fairs: CPC recently published research showing that one follow up phone call from a nurse could significantly motivate high cardiovascular risk health fair participants to see a doctor. This research is published in the Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, Nov/Dec 2009.

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