Preventive rehabilitative cardiology: the Mayo Clinic approach.

Coronary artery disease is a chronic condition that requires careful patient management to ensure the best possible outcome. The optimal control of the major modifiable risk factors for coronary atherosclerosis (cigarette smoking, dyslipidemia, hypertension, sedentary lifestyle) have been demonstrated to improve the cardiac event rate and cardiac mortality, to reduce the need for revascularization, and result in lower utilization of health care resources in patients with documented disease. Risk factor intervention in patients who have not yet developed atherosclerosis is also highly effective in preventing cardiac events. The major limitation of current efforts at aggressive risk factor modification is a relative lack of efficient ¿systems¿ for providing ongoing care specifically aimed towards risk reduction. This paper describes one such system.