Researchers have developed an interactive dashboard to help identify African American veterans at risk of cardiac amyloidosis. The heart condition disproportionately affects African American men, particularly those who have the V122I transthyretin gene mutation, which causes hereditary transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM).
The researchers present their work in a study recently published in Applied Clinical Informatics.
Despite advancements in noninvasive diagnostic tests, cardiac amyloidosis remains underdiagnosed due to lack of standardized screening, low clinician awareness, and fragmented care in health systems, which makes it difficult to share patients’ health information through various levels of care.
The study’s authors designed the dashboard to address these barriers by identifying high-risk individuals to promote early screening. Three Veterans Affairs (VA) health systems participated in this project in Tampa, Greater Los Angeles and Tucson.
Learn more about ATTR-CM causes and risk factors
Created using Microsoft SQL Report Builder, the dashboard compiles a range of clinical information including demographics, risk scores, comorbidities, laboratory values, imaging data and relevant medications. The dashboard automatically pulls and refreshes data from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse on a daily basis. Inclusion criteria were based on the 2023 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association consensus statement on diagnosis and treatment of ATTR-CM.
From a pool of 1,732 patients, the researchers identified 949 individuals at high risk for cardiac amyloidosis. A separate report is forthcoming where they will report the outcomes and results of those identified by the dashboard.
The researchers plan to continue working on the dashboard, fine-tuning it to improve clinician workflow and increase the project’s reach.
“This dashboard supports cardiologists and related disciplines by bringing together disparate clinical information from the EHR [electronic health record] and provides patient-level risk stratification to facilitate early diagnosis,” the study’s authors concluded. “We anticipate that this tool will facilitate efforts to reduce underdiagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis and reduce unnecessary variation in care that may adversely affect patients including those from at-risk and underserved communities.”
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