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The national Million Hearts® Campaign has aligned efforts across the country to prevent cardiovascular disease using a select set of evidence-based public health and clinical strategies. Although final numbers will not be available until 2019, the Campaign estimates that up to half a million cardiovascular events may have been prevented from 2012 through 2016.

A focus on the ABCS has generated slow, but steady improvement nationally in aspirin use, blood pressure control and statin use among people who are eligible based on current guidelines. Impressive reductions in tobacco use mean that millions of people have improved their health and millions more are protected from secondhand smoke. Although daily sodium intake has not dropped significantly in the past 5 years, widespread implementation of healthy food purchasing policies and voluntary industry adoption of recommendations for lower sodium food choices are expected to help all Americans eat healthier in the years ahead. Additional results of progress in the ABCS and sodium intake through 2016 and final numbers of cardiovascular events prevented during the first phase of Million Hearts® will be available in 2019.

The Campaign recently released a final report Million Hearts Progress Report, which outlines successes of the campaign as well as next steps.

Next Steps: Million Hearts 2022 Framework

Over the next five years, Million Hearts® will re-double its efforts to engage and equip partners and stakeholders nationwide to reach or exceed aggressive goals that will improve cardiovascular health and care for all Americans. Based on extensive modeling, expert interviews and literature review, and an aim to prevent a million cardiac events in five years, the Million Hearts® 2022 framework has been established to carry out the priority actions needed to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes.

Interested in hypertension rates in your state and county?

We just added state-specific hypertension maps to our Web site for the Great Plains QIN states; Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. The maps illustrate the number of Medicare beneficiaries with a hypertension diagnosis (Medicare A or Medicare B claims; 07/01/15 – 06/30/16).

Visit the Cardiac Care page of our Web site (under the Data tab) to access the maps for the GPQIN region as well as state/county-specific data.

For more information on our efforts to support the Million Hearts Initiative and improving cardiac health through partnerships, resources, education and shared learning, visit our Web site. Be sure to join our Learning and Action Network to get involved and connected.