Authored by: Laura Kanov, Senior Vice President, Product Strategy
We can’t let February slip away without emphasizing Heart Health. The month of February was set aside to raise awareness about heart disease and education Americans about the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death, and that is largely preventable!
Let’s look at some sobering facts [1]
- Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for approximately 800,000 deaths in the US
- One person dies every 40 seconds in the US from CVD
- The estimated cost of CVD will be $1,044 billion by 2030
- More then 90 million Americans carry a diagnosis of CVD
- 790,000+ US adults experience a heart attack each year
The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends these actions to lower your risk of heart disease:
- Eat healthy
- Get active
- Stay at a health weight
- Quit smoking and stay away from secondhand smoke
- Control your cholesterol and blood pressue
- Drink alcohol only in moderation
- Manage stress
Take a minute to reread that list.
These are habits, and habits are instilled at an early age. So, I’ll take this opportunity to implore moms, dads, grandmas, gramps and others to please demonstrate and support healthy habits for the children in your life.
HBI Spotlight Population Risk solution includes several models that predict an individual’s risk and detect increasing risk of cardiac and cardiovascular events and diseases including: Acute Myocardial Infarction, Cerebrovascular Accident/Stroke, Cardiac Dysrhythmias, Congestive Heart Failure, Coronary Heart Disease, and Heart Valve Disorders.
Now there is no excuse for not targeting and addressing heart health in your patients and populations. For more information, browse our solutions and published research on hbisolutions.com, contact us at info@hbisolutions.com or reach out to me directly at lkanov@hbisolutions.com. We’d love to show you how we are helping organizations across the country improve health and reduce costs in their populations.
For more information on heart health, the reader is referred to this 2017 report from the American Heart Association [2].
[1] https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/ten-points-to-remember/2017/02/09/14/58/heart-disease-and-stroke-statistics-2017
[2] https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000485