The National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Offers to Serve as Accountability Partner For IOM Surveillance Recommendations

ATLANTA, July 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention has offered to serve as the accountability partner to ensure that surveillance recommendations laid out in the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases, which was released to the public today, are implemented.

The recommendations, which the IOM released in this report sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), focus on the importance of establishing a surveillance system to track cardiovascular and chronic lung diseases across the country.

"Not only do we applaud the release of these recommendations, but the National Forum stands ready to be the accountability partner to make sure these recommendations are implemented," said Keith Mason, Executive Director of the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention. "We must drive action so our members, as well as additional stakeholders, work collectively to implement the recommendations because they have the potential to save and improve the lives of people across the country."  

"Those of us in the public health community have been calling for enhancements to our nation's ability to monitor heart and lung disease within the overall population for a long time, and these recommendations are an important step toward that goal," said Dr. Steve Sidney, Associate Director for Clinical Research at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research. "These recommendations are about more than passively counting hospitalizations and deaths. The information we gather will help us improve treatment outcomes for patients, monitor and enhance the quality of life, and reduce disparities in risk and disease burden that exist in our country."

"The National Forum looks forward to convening stakeholders to increase understanding, catalyzing stakeholders to take a role, and communicating action and progress toward achievement of the IOM's recommendations," said Dr. Wayne Rosamond, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. "We are grateful that the NHLBI, CDC and IOM chose to focus on this topic and call this to the attention of the nation."

The National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention is an "organization of organizations" with more than 100 organizational and individual members with interest in heart disease and stroke prevention. Started in 2003 to provide leadership for the implementation of A Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke, a national plan to chart a course for the prevention of heart disease and stroke, the National Forum's mission is to provide leadership and encourage collaborative action between organizations committed to heart disease and stroke prevention.

To read a summary of the IOM's report A Nationwide Framework for Surveillance of Cardiovascular and Chronic Lung Diseases, visit http://iom.edu, or click here.  

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Franz Fanuka
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SOURCE National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention