Preventive cardiology: Advanced care that reduces your risk of heart disease and stroke

Our preventive cardiology specialists work with your primary care doctor to keep your heart and blood vessels healthy. We offer comprehensive services in partnership with UW Health Heart and Vascular Care.

Founded in 1964, our preventive cardiology program was the first of its kind at an academic medical center. Today our cardiology experts are national leaders in preventive heart care.

We provide traditional preventive cardiology clinical services including our Lipid Clinic, our novel Advanced Hypertension Clinic and Sudden Cardiac Death Prevention Program, advanced nutrition counseling, state-of-the-art rehabilitation programs for several heart and blood vessel disorders, exercise facilities and screening for subclinical atherosclerosis.

Conditions we treat

You may experience one or more risks of cardiovascular disease. Our experts help you manage a variety of conditions to improve your health.

Our clinic sees patients with a history of:

• Diabetes mellitus

• Family history of heart or vascular disease at a young age

• High blood pressure (hypertension)

• High cholesterol, triglyceride or lipoprotein(a) levels (dyslipidemia)

• Metabolic syndrome

• Severe or difficult-to-treat lipid disorders or hypertension

• Subclinical atherosclerosis (including coronary artery calcification)

At the UW Health Preventive Cardiology Clinic, our care prevents heart and vascular conditions. We provide treatment for conditions like high blood pressure and high cholesterol that can lead to more serious health concerns.

We help you create a care plan that includes living a healthy lifestyle to reduce your risk of cardiovascular conditions and improve your overall health.

Your team may include:

• Cardiologists and preventive cardiologists

• Exercise physiologists

• Health psychologists

• Nurses and nurse practitioners

• Nutritionists

You can call our clinic to make an appointment or your primary care physician can refer to you to the Preventive Cardiology Clinic. Patients most often referred to the clinic have:

• Risk factors for heart disease and stroke, like high cholesterol, high triglycerides or high blood pressure

• A family history of heart or blood vessel disease

• Recently identified coronary artery calcium and atherosclerotic plaques

Your first clinic visit

We will mail you forms to complete. Be sure to bring your food record, health history questionnaire and any lab reports to your appointment.

Here’s what to expect at the clinic:

• You meet with a preventive cardiology doctor to complete a physical exam and review your health history

• You meet with a nutritionist

• We schedule follow-up tests and visits to evaluate your progress

• We send a summary of your visit to you and your primary care physician

We care about your health priorities and based on them, use blood tests, imaging and shared-decision making to help determine the best plan to improve your heart and blood vessel health. We help you create a lifestyle plan to support a healthy and strong heart.

Services offered include:

• 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring

• Exercise stress testing

• Metabolic stress testing

Cardiac rehabilitation

Traditional cardiac rehabilitation helps patients who have had a heart attack, coronary artery stent or bypass surgery, valve replacement or who have stable angina. At UW Health, we also offer heart failure rehabilitation for people with weak hearts, a novel Atrial Fibrillation Rehabilitation program to help prevent recurrences of atrial fibrillation and Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) Rehabilitation to improve walking and quality of life in people with PAD. The care team will develop a personalized care plan that will include exercise, nutrition and support. Learn more

Our preventive cardiology services are nationally recognized by the American Heart Association for their expert care and advanced exercise facilities, nutritional counseling and screening for subclinical atherosclerosis.