Dr Janet Wright Discusses How Million Hearts Will Leverage Partnerships for Success

The Million Hearts initiative, which aims to prevent a million cardiovascular events in a 5-year period, will focus on utilizing its partnerships with health systems and employers as it embarks upon its second phase, according to Janet Wright, MD, FACC, the program’s executive director.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What’s on the horizon for the Million Hearts initiative in the coming years?

What we’re excited about in Million Hearts 2022 is first and foremost that all of the partnerships and relationships that were either formed or deepened in the first 5 years are geared up and ready to go. In fact, their wheels are all turning. So we believe that although we likely will not have prevented a million events in the first 5 years, we are setting that aim again for the second 5 years, and we believe that the partnerships and many different types of relationships are the ticket to getting there.

In addition, there are some policies that started out in late 2011 and early 2012 that were conceptual, but now are actually pervasive across the country. So more and more places are basing their payment on value, and that allows performance of a whole team of people, really getting away from the fee-for-service model. And in addition, we have a number of best practices and lessons learned that we can layer on top of the existing evidence to make sure that improvements occur quickly.

Frankly, all 50 states have been involved in Million Hearts, including the District of Columbia, as well as many health systems. We will be looking to hospitals and academic medical centers as major partners in 2022, as well as employers who care deeply about the health of their employees.