Using the Cardiovascular Risk Calculator

Before you begin

Procedure

  1. From within the Clinical Window, select Tools > Tool Box > Cardiovascular Risk. The CV Risk tab appears. Select which calculator you wish to use. If you select the Absolute calculator, the following fields will be pre-populated with data, where available:
    • Sex at Birth. As sourced from the patient's record.
    • Age. As sourced from the patient's record.
    • Systolic blood pressure. As sourced from the most recent blood pressure 'sitting' data, recorded within the last 2 months.
    • Diastolic blood pressure. As sourced from the most recent blood pressure 'sitting' data, recorded within the last 2 months.
    • Smoking status. A patient who has quit smoking within the last year will be considered a smoker for the purposes of the calculator.
    • Total Cholesterol. As sourced from the most recent Total Cholesterol data, recorded within the last 2 months.
    • HDL Cholesterol. As sourced from the most recent HDL Cholesterol data, recorded within the last 2 months.
    • Diabetes. As sourced from the patients past medical history, see Absolute CVD Risk Diagnosis Descriptions.

  2. Options:
    • For patients who are automatically considered 'high risk', simply click Save to automatically document the risk value as >15% in the Tool Box. This will also add a note to the patient's Progress Notes. There are no further actions required. You may exit the Tool Box.
    • For all other patients, click Absolute CVD Risk Calculator Proceed now to Step 3.
  3. Enter values for the following fields:
    • Systolic Blood Pressure - (Enter a value between 50 and 300).
    • Diastolic Blood Pressure - (Enter a value between 20 and 150).
    • Total Cholesterol - (Enter a value between 2 and 30).
    • HDL Cholesterol - (Enter a value between 0.2 and 20).
  4. Indicate the patient's smoking and diabetes status, and ECG LVH. Note that this is not the same as 'echo LVH' which is a lesser risk factor.
  5. Click Save A new entry appears within the recorded data on the right-hand side of this window. Note that this data is saved to this window for future reference, and a record is made in the patient's Progress Note.

    Results > 15% are not displayed in the table of results, as such values are superfluous.