Learnings from Implementation Strategies to Improve Lipid Management

Lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol reduces cardiovascular risk. International lipid management guidelines recommend LDL-cholesterol goals or thresholds for initiating lipid-lowering therapy. However, contemporary real-world studies have shown that many high- and very high-risk patients are not attaining LDL-cholesterol goals and are not receiving intensive lipid-lowering therapies. In this review, recent examples of implementation strategies for optimising lipid management are discussed.

Implementation studies are heterogenous in their strategies and design. At the clinician level, multidisciplinary team-based care (including multidisciplinary lipid clinics), pharmacist- or nurse-led interventions, decision-support algorithms or protocols, and educational initiatives have shown potential to improve lipid management. Various strategies to improve patient adherence to lipid-lowering therapies have demonstrated at least short-term efficacy, including education, shared decision-making, behavioural support and nudges. Electronic health records can be leveraged at low cost to identify patients requiring initiation or intensification of lipid-lowering therapies, but the optimal method of integrating automated alerts or nudges to influence decision-making requires further research. Moreover, telehealth and remote care delivery models can improve access to healthcare and facilitate lipid-lowering.

Multifaceted strategies with a systematic approach to targeting clinician, patient and system related factors can be successful in improving lipid management. Future implementation research should evaluate longer-term outcomes and follow implementation science theories, models and/or frameworks at all stages. By doing so, ongoing implementation studies will help researchers better understand the impact, sustainability and scalability of strategies, and where barriers and facilitators to lipid management may exist in other contexts.