Heart Screening: What to Expect

With many health risks, if you don’t know the baseline numbers when you’re healthy, you won’t know how serious a change in your health can be. At Piedmont Heart Institute, we offer an initial heart disease risk assessment, especially for women, as a baseline to monitor and set standards for women's heart health. By knowing your numbers – such as cholesterol and blood pressure – you and your physician can more quickly identify any concerns or issues.

Women’s Heart Disease Risk Screening - What to Expect

Please arrive 30 minutes prior to your scheduled appointment and expect to stay for 1 to 1.5 hours.

You do not have to fast for this appointment. Our  Nurse Practitioner will determine your risk for heart disease by completing a thorough cardiovascular evaluation, which will include:

• Complete Health History: Includes family history, pregnancy history, risk for depression, assessment of sleep habits and assessment of exercise capacity.
   
• Physical exam: Includes a complete heart exam, with arm blood pressure and a special measurement called an ABI (Ankle-brachial index), to screen for circulation abnormalities in your legs. Your waist circumference will be measured and your BMI will be calculated. We will also check an ECG to check the electrical activity of your heart.
   
• Extensive Lab Work: We will process a simple finger stick using a cholestech machine that will give us a small drop of blood. This machine will give us your blood sugar and cholesterol panel results within 5 minutes. After your visit, you will have labs drawn via venipuncture (out of your vein) that will provide inflammatory markers (CRP, C reactive protein) and Lp(a), which is a high-risk cholesterol marker. 
   
• Heart Health Report: During your visit, you will receive a heart health report that will be customized for you with the next steps. The following day, our Nurse Practitioner will either call or email you with your lab results that were drawn via venipuncture, as these results are not available on the day of your visit.
   

Schedule a Screening

Screening Locations

Risk screenings are conveniently located at a range of Piedmont Healthcare locations: