How Our Approach to the Patient with Multiple Chronic Diseases is Different
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If practices or commercial programs have a chronic disease management program it is generally focused on a single problem like diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart failure. That goes back to thinking about individual risk factors for late catastrophes like heart attack. The diabetes programs are designed to get the sugar down using anything that lowers glucose. Patients with diabetes don’t die of a high sugar, they die of heart attacks and strokes. Programs that focus only on getting the sugar down don’t prevent heart attacks, strokes, and death. That is because the patient with diabetes seldom presents with diabetes alone. The often have high sugar, high blood pressure, high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, and chronic kidney disease. To prevent heart attack and stroke, all those conditions must be addressed in a coordinated and integrated fashion.
How Our Approach to the Patient with Multiple Chronic Diseases is Different
How Our Approach to the Patient with Multiple…
How Our Approach to the Patient with Multiple Chronic Diseases is Different
If practices or commercial programs have a chronic disease management program it is generally focused on a single problem like diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart failure. That goes back to thinking about individual risk factors for late catastrophes like heart attack. The diabetes programs are designed to get the sugar down using anything that lowers glucose. Patients with diabetes don’t die of a high sugar, they die of heart attacks and strokes. Programs that focus only on getting the sugar down don’t prevent heart attacks, strokes, and death. That is because the patient with diabetes seldom presents with diabetes alone. The often have high sugar, high blood pressure, high LDL-cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, and chronic kidney disease. To prevent heart attack and stroke, all those conditions must be addressed in a coordinated and integrated fashion.