Effect of preventive healthcare services for adults on the detection of patients with abnormal blood test results: Experience from Taiwan

Objective: To understand the rate of detection, diagnosis and treatment in patients with abnormal blood test results among adults who were eligible for preventive healthcare services.

Methods: We used data from Prevention Service Outcome File of the Bureau of Health Promotion, the official form for registering the clinical data of adults who were eligible for preventive healthcare services to identify cases with abnormal blood pressure, total cholesterol and glucose level. Combined data from National Health Insurance Research Database of the Bureau of National Health Insurance which is designated repository of all beneficiary enrollment data, inpatients and outpatients billing claims and drug prescription, we identified abnormal cases with hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes based on a disease diagnostic coding and tracked whether they received a drug prescription after diagnosis.

Results: Of 1,725,005 eligible cases of preventive healthcare services for adults in 2009, 66.1% were qualified screening for hypertension, 87.3% for hyperlipidemia and 86.6% for diabetes. At the initial screening visit, 16.5% of subjects had systolic pressure ≥140mmHg /diastolic pressure ≥90mmHg, 13.6% had a total cholesterol level≥240mg/dL, and 7.5% have blood glucose level≥126mg/dL. Those abnormal cases were ascertained to have hypertension (27.6%), hyperlipidemia (26.0%) and diabetes (40.0%) according to disease diagnosis. Over 80% of patients received a drug prescription for treatment of their chronic disease within a year after diagnosis.

Conclusions: The use of preventive healthcare services for adults aged over 40 years can detect patients with abnormal blood test reading and majority of cases received treatment after the screening program.