HHS Awards $112 Million To Improve Local Cardiac Health Care

The Department of and Human Services announced awards of $112 million regional cooperatives about 5,000 primary physicians in 12 states, aimed at improving the heart health of their nearly 8 million patients and preventing heart attacks and stroke. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States.

The program, called EvidenceNOW: Advancing Heart in Primary Care, will help primary care practices in urban and rural communities. The program establishes seven regional cooperatives with teams of experts who will work with up to 300 small primary care practices.

The services of the cooperatives are aimed at helping small primary care practices incorporate cardiovascular prevention in their patients’ care.

HHS also awarded a grant to support independent external evaluation of the EvidenceNOW initiative, to study its impact on practice improvement and to determine which quality improvement strategies are most effective.

The grants represent one of the largest research investments so far by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Funding comes from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund created by the Affordable Care Act.