The Ottawa Mobile Screening Program-Concept and First 18 Months of Experience with a Community-Based Outreach Cardiovascular Prevention Program.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is a critical need to implement new strategies to combat cardiovascular (CV) disease and more specifically valvular heart disease (VHD). We hypothesize that a community-based, outreach, mobile screening program offering convenient screening for VHD using handheld cardiac ultrasound is feasible. and capable of facilitating early diagnosis and referral in a substantial proportion of patients. We aimed to present our experience and results from the first 18 months of implementation of the program. METHODS: We included individuals aged ≥ 65 years with no known CV disease, residing in Ottawa and its surrounding region (within Canada). We took the opportunity to combine CV risk factor assessment with VHD screening. Potential abnormal findings were triaged according to a predefined algorithm, including an automatic referral process. RESULTS: We screened 1817 participants (aged 75 ± 7 years; 70% female) during 109 clinics held at 57 different locations between May 2023 and October 2024. VHD abnormalities were observed in 125 participants (7%), and nonvalvular echocardiographic abnormalities were observed in 163 participants (9%). Taking advantage of VHD screening, we identified elevated blood pressure, cholesterol level, or hemoglobin A1C level in 505 participants (28%), with 77% of these cases being newly diagnosed/untreated. Participants with VHD were referred to our valve centre; others were advised to contact their primary care provider or a walk-in clinic for appropriate follow-up care. CONCLUSIONS: In this innovative prevention initiative, we demonstrate the feasibility of an outreach mobile screening program, revealing relatively high rates of VHD, nonvalvular abnormalities, and uncontrolled risk factors. These findings highlight the program's potential to substantially enhance population health outcomes.