Corporate Sponsors Team Up with ACC on CardioSmart National Care Initiative

Joint Efforts will Help Reach Millions of Consumers to Promote Heart Healthy Living

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American College of Cardiology (ACC) today announced initial sponsors of its CardioSmart National Care Initiative – a patient-centered campaign to engage people to play an active role in their own heart health and empower them to make better, healthier lifestyle choices. These leading companies and organizations are helping the ACC strategically raise awareness about treatment effectiveness and heart healthy living by providing patients and those at risk with strategies and tools to help manage or lower the risk of heart disease. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, is collaborating with the ACC to develop the evidence-based content that will be a part of the CardioSmart initiative.

Corporate sponsors of the ACC's CardioSmart programs include AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Boston Scientific, Bristol-Myers Squibb/sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Coca-Cola, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. and Lilly USA, General Mills, GlaxoSmithKline, Medtronic, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, sanofi-aventis, and Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, Forest Laboratories, Inc., and the California Health Care Foundation. The ACC has also partnered with Peoplechart Corporation in the development of CardioSmart disease management tools.

"Heart disease remains America's deadliest and most costly health problem. By engaging patients and those at risk in prevention strategies and self-management, our goal and hope is that Americans become healthier with an overall reduced risk of heart disease," said Ralph Brindis, M.D., M.P.H., president of the ACC. "Our corporate sponsors will leverage their considerable reach to engage a broad population and deliver important prevention and disease management information and tools to consumers."

The CardioSmart National Care Initiative is based, in part, on the growing body of evidence suggesting that medical outcomes can be improved when people become more knowledgeable and engaged in their own health management and care. Getting early detection, prevention and disease management messages into the mainstream – where people at risk for heart disease are already engaged – has been shown to be an effective way to educate people and promote health behavior change and is also a fundamental part of successful public health interventions.  

Working with these sponsors is just one way in which the ACC plans to deliver heart-healthy strategies to patients as well as to those who are at risk for heart disease. Other elements include:

• Strengthening the doctor/patient relationship to improve health outcomes for people with heart disease by delivering patient-centered tools to doctors' offices;
• Providing a comprehensive, web-based platform with information and smart, practical tools to improve heart health and help people with heart disease become active participants in their health;
• Sponsoring community-based events to provide everyday strategies to improve heart health.

The ACC's newly formed Patient Centered Care Committee and Board of Trustees carefully review each potential sponsor, its products and how well the organization and its brand fit with the ACC's goals and values. The organizations selected as sponsors have demonstrated a commitment to offering healthy choices amongst their product offerings and a desire to promote wellness.  The ACC will not endorse any product or service in connection with its CardioSmart National Care Initiative. In addition, the ACC maintains complete editorial independence over program materials and tools, which support guideline-based cardiovascular care and prevention.

More about CardioSmart

The ACC launched the CardioSmart National Care Initiative to assist patients with heart disease and those at risk of heart disease in making better and more thoughtful choices in their everyday lives. The goal of the CardioSmart campaign is not necessarily to effect drastic changes in behaviors overnight; the goal is to support small, immediate changes that over time can have a big impact on health outcomes.

"These everyday strategies give people with and at risk for heart disease tools, not rules, to improve their heart health," added Brindis. "Small changes add up to big results over time."

The ACC has for more than 60 years been committed to advancing quality cardiovascular care through education, research promotion, development and application of care standards and practice guidelines. For more information, visit www.cardiosmart.org.

SOURCE American College of Cardiology