Resources for Health Care Professionals
American Heart Month 2024
As a health care professional or clinician, you play an important role helping patients, including women, manage and control their health conditions, including hypertension.
High blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease, and high blood pressure is steadily increasing as a contributing cause of death for U.S. women of all ages.1
By working toward a healthier life, women and their health care teams can help close this disparity gap.
Who Should Use This Toolkit?
This toolkit is designed for health care professionals and clinicians to help support their patients, especially women, by listening to their heart.
These resources can help your clinical team implement protocols, use data to improve health outcomes, and be inspired by other practices’ success stories.
A health equity lens can also help address the needs of all your patient populations and help improve cardiovascular health for all.
How Do I Use This Toolkit?
- Identify patients with hypertension and other cardiovascular disease CVD risk factors.
- Incorporate lessons learned from success stories.
- Share messages and graphics with your care teams to help patients manage their CVD risk factors.
Clinical Tools and Resources
Explore various types of tools, guides, and success stories that can help you support your patients in taking small steps toward a healthier life and your health care team in implementing best practices.
- Pulse Check: Live to the Beat
Help women learn how to manage their conditions, move more, eat healthier, stress less, and work with their health care team. - “Heart Healthy Steps” Campaign Partner Toolkit
Use these messages and tools to encourage adults ages 55 and older to practice heart-healthy habits that can help lower their risk for heart disease and stroke. - Recipes for a Heart-Healthy Lifestyle
Share these affordable, nutritious recipes with your patients to encourage healthy eating.
- Health Equity Indicators Toolkit
This toolkit presents health equity indicators (HEIs) across eight focus areas, or health equity themes, that influence inequities in cardiovascular disease prevention, care, and management as outlined in the HEI Conceptual Framework for cardiovascular disease. - Focusing on Health Equity
Learn how Million Hearts® aims to advance health equity through policies and practices that provide access to resources and enable cardiovascular health for all. - Community-Clinical Linkages Health Equity Guide
Practitioners can use this guide to help incorporate health equity into community-clinical linkages (CCLs). CCLs are an effective approach to preventing and managing chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease. - Grady Implementation Guide
This implementation guide for public health practitioners and health care professionals is based on the Grady Heart Failure Program. The guide provides a detailed description of an effective intervention to address health disparities among heart failure patients.
- Self-Measured Blood Pressure Monitoring
Explore tools and action guides on this webpage to help you implement SMBP monitoring in your clinic and engage patients in monitoring their own blood pressure. - Success Story: Wisconsin Team Leverages SMBP Monitoring to Improve Outcomes
Read this success story about how ThedaCare health care system became a Hypertension Control Champion. - Success Story: Using Home Blood Pressure Monitoring for Hypertension Control Success
Read this success story about how Hunterdon Cardiovascular Associates became a Hypertension Control Champion.
- Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process Approach Guide
This implementation guide provides key examples for public health practitioners and health care professionals to help engage pharmacists in hypertension management through the Pharmacists’ Patient Care Process. The guide shares lessons learned from the Michigan Medicine Hypertension Pharmacists’ Program. - Improving Medication Adherence Among Patients with Hypertension
Use this web content to help you and your team learn about and overcome medication adherence barriers. - Success Story: Two Coordinated Health Care Teams Improve Medication Adherence
Read this success story about how health care systems in Orlando and San Diego became Hypertension Control Champions. - Success Story: Large Health System Implements Medication Adherence Practices
Watch a video about how Kaiser Permanente in Denver became a Hypertension Control Champion.
- Million Hearts® Hypertension Control Change Package, Second Edition
Implement this list of process improvements as your team seeks optimal hypertension control among your patient population. - Success Story: Using Practice Facilitation to Improve Care Delivery
Read this success story about how an initiative made the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene a Hypertension Control Champion. - Success Story: Leveraging Information Technology to Empower Patients
Read this success story about how Reliant Medical Group became a Hypertension Control Champion.
- Blood Pressure Control
Read about Million Hearts® and their priority to optimize care, starting with supporting blood pressure control. This content includes tools and resources for clinicians, public health practitioners, and patients. - Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy
Learn about the different types of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and share Million Hearts® tools and resources about preventing and treating them.
Spread the Word
Share the following social media messages with your followers. Don’t forget to tag @CDCHeart_Stroke in your posts and follow DHDSP and Million Hearts® on social media.
Women often experience delayed recognition, diagnosis, and treatment for heart attacks. They deserve to be heard—especially when it comes to their hearts.
Commit to defending your patients’ heart health this American Heart Month. Empower women to raise their voices. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/3OAuNCy
Not all women are equally impacted by cardiovascular disease: Black women are nearly 60% more likely to have high blood pressure than White women. This American Heart Month, commit to increasing awareness of barriers to equitable health care. https://bit.ly/4bvEgF6
Cardiovascular disease (#CVD) isn’t exclusive to older adults. Data show that CVD and CVD mortality are increasing among younger populations. Explore change packages, best practice guides, and other tools from CDC to help your team support CVD patients of all ages this #HeartMonth. cdc.gov/myheartmyvoice
No matter where you’re from or where you are, you can take steps toward heart health. Get shareable, evidence-based resources from CDC to help you manage cardiovascular disease (#CVD) in your practice. #HeartMonth cdc.gov/myheartmyvoice
1 in every 3 deaths in the United States is related to cardiovascular disease. Explore CDC’s #HeartMonth toolkits for evidence-based resources to support heart health in your practice. cdc.gov/myheartmyvoice
Only about 1 in 4 adults with #hypertension have their condition under control. The Million Hearts [tag] Hypertension Control Change Package can help improve patient #BloodPressure control with practice- and evidence-based resources. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/2Net7xY
High blood pressure accounts for 1 in 5 deaths among women in the U.S. and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Be proactive about heart health and learn about the risk factors for high blood pressure. https://bit.ly/4brWEi6
Health equity is more than an ideal—it’s a requirement for a truly heart-healthy community. Disparities in heart health deepen based on gender, especially when coupled with race, ethnicity, and other social factors. Make health equity a primary focus in your practice. https://bit.ly/4boUvDT
Uncontrolled hypertension is the primary contributor to morbidity & mortality rate disparities in cardiovascular disease between Black and White adults. Help improve heart health in your patients with #HeartMonth resources from @CDCHeart_Stroke. cdc.gov/myheartmyvoice
Only about 1 in 4 adults with #hypertension have their condition under control. The @MillionHeartsUS Hypertension Control Change Package can help improve patient #BloodPressure control with practice- and evidence-based resources. #HeartMonth https://bit.ly/2Net7xY
Review and share our materials for public health professionals to help your communities live healthier lives.
Download our resources for you to share with individuals and patients in your practice.
Reference
- Vaughan AS, Coronado F, Casper M, Loustalot F, Wright JS. County-Level Trends in Hypertension-Related Cardiovascular Disease Mortality-United States, 2000 to 2019. J Am Heart Assoc. 2022 Apr 5;11(7):e024785.
