Million Hearts® Campaign
Heart disease and stroke are two of the leading causes of death in the United States. Million Hearts® brings together communities, health systems, nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and private-sector partners from across the country to fight heart disease and stroke, helping Americans live longer, healthier, more productive lives. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are the co-leaders of Million Hearts® within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, working alongside many other federal agencies.
As meaningful users of health IT, providers have a valuable
Heart disease is responsible for 1 of every 4 deaths in the country. Million Hearts® is a national initiative that has set an ambitious goal to prevention 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. The impact of these efforts will be even greater over time.
tool right at their fingertips to generate data, configure reports and develop automated alerts within their EHR systems to greatly advance quality improvement efforts, such as the Million Hearts® initiative. PA REACH is a partner in the Million Hearts® initiative and is committed to encourage and provide assistance to health care providers to effectively utilize health IT to better track and treat those patients with cardiac issues, as well as to identify those who are at cardiac risk.
Be One in a Million Hearts® - Take the Pledge
Preventing 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017 will require the work and commitment to change from all of us. There are steps that each of us can take to reach this goal as a nation.
As a health care provider, you are at the front lines of patient care. Be one in a Million Hearts® and see how your actions can make a positive difference. For example, take a few extra minutes with patients to establish and discuss their specific goals for treatment and most effective ways that they can control their risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Use health IT, such as electronic health records (EHRs) and decision support tools, to improve the delivery of care and control of the
ABCS. Remember, a Million Hearts® begins with you.
Million Hearts® Resources
Visit the Million Hearts website to access an impressive collection of resources to help you improve cardiac health, including toolkits, videos, publications and articles, action guides, treatment protocols and more.
Click here to access these resources.
Take the EHR Innovations for Improving Hypertension Challenge
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) launched the EHR Innovations for Improving Hypertension Challeng to accelerate improvement on the Million Hearts® “B” strategy – Blood Pressure Control.
The goal of the Challenge is to gather specific descriptions of health IT tools and approaches used by individual practices to implement an evidence-based blood pressure (BP) treatment protocol that has led to improvement in practice-wide blood pressure control (Phase 1), and identify models for quickly and widely spreading these to other practices (Phase 2). A comprehensive clinical decision support (CDS) approach supports these five protocol elements:
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Blood pressure measurement/recording
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Blood pressure follow-up
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Initiation and titration of medications
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Patient engagement
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Workup/referral for poor control
Submission Dates: July 7, 2014 - October 6, 2014
Winners Announced: October 27, 2014
Phase I Winners (up to 4): $5,000.00 - Phase 1 will have up to 4 winners, each of whom will receive a $5,000 prize. Other Phase 1 submitters who provide CDS tools that reviewers select for dissemination efforts during Phase 2 will receive non-monetary recognition.
Phase 2 Winner: $30,000.00 - Phase 2 will have a single winner of a $30,000 cash prize. Other Phase 2 submitters, whose CDS tool dissemination and implementation strategies the reviewers deem commendable, will receive non-monetary recognition.
PA REACH Provider Named 2013 Hypertension Control Challenge Winner
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Million Hearts® initiative recognized Dr. Nilesh V. Patel, from Audubon, PA, as one of nine Champions of the 2013 Hypertension Control Challenge for success in achieving excellent rates of high blood pressure control.
Dr. Patel was recognized for using his electronic health record (EHR) system to identify, treat and recall hypertensive patients as well as schedule follow-up appointments with them in a focused effort to help control their high blood pressure. “Using the EHR on this effort was the best path to take to help my team more efficiently provide targeted care and education to our hypertensive patients,” said Dr. Patel.
Dr. Patel has been working closely with the PA REACH over the past few years to adopt, implement and meaningfully use his EHR system. Read more.
PA REACH Awarded LiveHealthyPA Grant
The Pennsylvania Department of Health has been awarded a grant from the CDC to prevent and control diabetes, heart disease, obesity and associated risk factors. Quality Insights/PA REACH have been awarded work under this grant to work in the five counties of Lackawanna, Luzerne, Monroe, Carbon and Schuylkill in northeast PA and the five counties of Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia in southeast PA. These areas report some of the highest incidences of these diseases statewide. PA REACH will assist 40 practices within the health systems in these counties this year, and will expand to other regions throughout PA over the next 4 years.
PA REACH’s first objective is to assess the capabilities of EHRs installed in health system practices. PA REACH coordinators will help determine whether the software in use provides clinical decision support and disease management functions for these elements. Quality Insights will analyze the frequency and utilization of standard quality measures and NQF measures 18 (Controlling BP) and 59 (Diabetes: Hemoglobin A1C- poor control) by analyzing the measures reported for meaningful use and reported to PQRS from EHR reports.
Additionally, the program seeks to encourage use of such functionality in patient care. PA REACH coordinators will provide onsite visits to document existing workflows and provide feedback for incorporating the EHR’s disease management modules into patient workflow and documentation.
For general information about PA REACH's Million Hearts efforts, please call .