The leader of a national initiative aims to raise public awareness that most heart attacks and strokes are preventable by working with partners across the country, including organizations in Wisconsin.

"It's a matter of taking the reins and making that happen" said Dr. Janet Wright, Million Hearts executive director. "Not that that's easy. But in Wisconsin, that's what people are doing. They're taking control of this and they're going to push back heart disease."

Million Hearts, co-led by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and launched in 2012, seeks to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017.

Wright said Wisconsin has been a "fertile field" for partnership.

"There's a culture of collaboration in the state that is extraordinary," Wright said at the Statewide Quality Improvement Event Tuesday in Madison. "Not only is this a collaborative place, but it's specifically focused on health and health outcomes. And it feels like it's everybody's job."

A Wisconsin version of the program was developed in 2012 and revamped in 2015 as the Million Hearts Wisconsin Blood Pressure Improvement CHALLENGE. The one-year campaign, which started last November, aims to collect stories on efforts to reduce high blood pressure in clinical, community and parish settings.

The challenge, directed by the Department of Health Services Division of Public Health Chronic Disease Prevention Program, is supported by a number of partners, including MetaStar and the Wisconsin Community Health Fund.

Wright said the national effort, which is winding down, has led to major efforts to address hypertension. Now large organizations, like the American Medical Association and American Heart Association, "are lending their huge shoulders to the wheel," she said.

Wright sees Smarter Management and Resource Use for Today's Complex Cardiac Care, also known as SMARTCare, as part of Million Hearts since many of those who designed the program became advocates for the national initiative.

SMARTCare, developed by the Wisconsin and Florida chapters of the American College of Cardiology, gives physicians and patients a set of communication and collaboration tools to address heart disease.

She believes the initiative "is going to be able to teach a lot of places around the country on how to improve outcomes."

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Wisconsin State Journal
Health Sense: New Fund Aims to Improve State's Health

April 26, 2015