MinorityHeartHealth.org

What We Do

The 'Heart Failure Quality Improvement Initiative' is a recently formed data driven collaboration focusing on bio diverse patients whose outcomes are often ignored by policy makers who tend to norm policy and programs to a nonexistent “typical” patient. Our mission is to advocate for diverse patient populations to ensure they are receiving standard of care for heart failure as recommended by clinical guidelines.

Quality Measures

Quality measures within federal payment programs reward physicians and hospitals for delivering the best possible care. A long overdue measure of appropriate heart failure medication use in African Americans is working its way through the process and needs your support to ensure it is successfully adopted.

Evidence-Based Treatment

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) is a trusted resource for providing comparative effectiveness research to clinicians. While these findings should be current and ensure the best possible care, AHRQ cites obsolete and misleading information regarding evidence-based treatment for African Americans with heart failure

Veterans

The VA operates the nation’s largest health care system, with more than 1,700 hospitals, clinics, community living centers, and other facilities. Yet the nation’s Veterans do not have access to the recommended treatment for heart failure in African Americans because it is excluded from their National Drug Formulary.

1,000,000 Hearts Initiative

In 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services launched the Million Hearts as a national public-private initiative to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. The project focuses on heart disease prevention, educational campaigns, care improvement, and local health initiatives.

Hospital Adherence

Only 24 percent of eligible African Americans with heart failure receive the appropriate Standard of Care after being discharged from the hospital. We call on all hospitals to commit to providing all patients with the right care by adhering to guidelines from the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association.