Canada’s comprehensive heart health guidelines now available
The new Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) guideline offers 83 recommendations from 11 national guideline groups, making it easier for primary care and other health care providers to manage and prevent heart disease in Canadian patients.
The guideline is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
Aimed at primary care and other health care providers, the C-CHANGE guideline contains actionable recommendations for Canadian adults with or at risk of cardiovascular disease, including:
- people with obesity, diabetes or hypertension
- people with dyslipidemia, atherosclerotic vascular disease or heart failure
- people with atrial fibrillation, stroke or dementia
C-CHANGE also includes health behaviour recommendations for all Canadians to address risk factors for these conditions, such as dietary, smoking and physical activity considerations.
"C-CHANGE is all about singing from the same song sheet," says Dr. Sheldon Tobe, co-chair of C-CHANGE and nephrologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "Our goal is to help health care providers understand the evidence for best practices, and if they can follow the guidelines, the health of the Canadian population could substantially improve."
More than 50 per cent of the C-CHANGE guideline contains new or revised recommendations from the previous 2018 version. The guideline is more holistic in caring for patients with multimorbidity and includes includes a subsection on depression given its frequent co-existence and impact on cardiovascular disease.
"In the past four years, many of the national guideline organizations have launched new, evidence-based recommendations — from changes in medication management to new thresholds for lipid levels in secondary prevention," says Dr. Rahul Jain, co-chair of C-CHANGE and family physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "We hope this resource helps primary care clinicians stay up to date with many constantly evolving cardiovascular guidelines, so their patients can get the best care possible."
Media Contact
Katherine Nazimek
Communications Advisor
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Katherine.nazimek@sunnybrook.ca
