From the NLA President: Making Waves

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Being a part of the National Lipid Association is about more than just raising awareness about lipid disorders — it’s about effecting change within our communities and across the country.

One of the ways the NLA has succeeded in doing this is through national campaigns geared toward promoting our organization and bringing attention to topics of great interest to healthcare providers and their patients. Since the last edition of the LipidSpin, the NLA has launched two of these successful campaigns.

To coincide with National Cholesterol Education Month in September, the NLA launched and promoted a triglyceride campaign in order to raise awareness about the significant role triglycerides play in patients’ lives. The success of this campaign was due in large part to the participation from members who took our survey on triglyceride, knowledge, management, and practices. One thing we learned from our survey is that there is still a large gap in the use and reporting of non-HDL-C by clinical laboratories. Future, educational campaigns on high triglycerides will need to focus more on standardizing the reporting of non-HDL-C and encouraging providers to use non- HDL-C in patient management. Aiding the triglyceride educational campaign has been the Foundation of the NLA, who played a large role in the creation of patient education tools and resources. You can read more about the success of the “What’s Your Number?” campaign in the Foundation Update by Anne C. Goldberg, MD, FNLA, on page 32.

The second big initiative from the NLA leadership was the release of the Executive Summary of the NLA Recommendations for Patient-Centered Management of Dyslipidemia – Part 1 in the September/ October issue of the Journal of Clinical Lipidology. Along with the release of the Executive Summary in the Journal, was the creation of several other useful tools and resources for clinicians including:

• Recommendations tab in the Clinical Lipidology Resource Center on lipidjournal.com
• ReachMD podcasts with NLA experts
• Infographic from the NLA Recommendations that emphasize the importance of setting cholesterol management (available on page 36)
• Lipid Insights Virtual Journal Club, a 60-minute CME Webcast, on the Recommendations
• Slide deck on the Recommendations which you can use for presentations

You can find all these tools and more on the NLA website at lipid.org/ recommendations. In addition, Part 2 of these Recommendations are scheduled to be published by the time of the national meeting in June 2015.

With the creation of the NLA Recommendations for the Patient-Centered Management of Dyslipidemia, the leadership of the NLA felt strongly that it was time for the NLA to act. Although issuing general lipid recommendations

has always been part of the NLA strategic plan, the release of the 2013 AHA ACC Guideline on the Treatment of Blood Cholesterol in Adults accelerated the process. We are very excited about the new NLA Recommendations and how they can help supplement the current

AHA/ACC guidelines and also help to “fill in the gaps.” So far we have received very positive feedback by the provider community.

In the next few months, we are going to ask members to help disseminate our recommendations to the broader provider community. This could be in the form of local hospital grand rounds, presentations at medical society meetings, presentations at major subspecialty meetings, or CME educational meetings. We look forward to member participation in disseminating the NLA Recommendations and are requesting any suggestions on how to get us our message out. As to paraphrase the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”

Campaigns like these are the lifeblood of the NLA and we cannot thank you enough for helping make them so successful. Whether it’s being an author on a major NLA paper or sharing a post on Facebook, your continued commitment to the NLA is invaluable.

As we move forward toward 2015, we must continue to set the bar high and find new ways to build our presence in the lipid and broader health care community.

Looking back, the 2014 Fall Clinical

Lipid Update in Indianapolis was a huge success. Congratulations to the Northeast and Midwest Chapters for hosting such a popular event. If you were not able attend the meeting, you can access meeting highlights by visiting lipid.org/education/ highlights.

If you haven’t already, make sure you’ve saved the date for the NLA’s upcoming meetings. The 2015 Spring Clinical

Lipid Update — sponsored by the Pacific and Southwest Chapters — will take place Feb. 27– March 1, 2015, in Denver. In addition, the 2015 Annual Scientific Sessions will be hosted by the Midwest Lipid Association June 11–14, 2015, in Chicago. Please check lipid.org/conferences frequently for ongoing updates on all upcoming meetings.