Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women in the United States. EvidenceNOW – Advancing Heart Health in Primary Care – will help primary care practices in both urban and rural communities use the latest evidence to encourage Better Care, Smarter Spending, and Healthier People. Southwest Center for Health Innovation (CHI) is partnering with the University of New Mexico to participate in this national program.
EvidenceNOW is an initiative led by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). In EvidenceNOW, regional cooperatives will work with about 5,000 primary care professionals in 12 states to improve the heart health of their nearly 8 million patients.
SWCHI staff will lead the outreach effort in New Mexico, collaborating with 52 clinics statewide. We will also provide training and technical assistance around practice detailing and the HEROs model.
The EvidenceNOW initiative establishes seven regional cooperatives composed of multidisciplinary teams of experts that will each provide quality improvement services to up to 300 small primary care practices. These services include onsite coaching, consultation from experts in health care delivery improvement, sharing best practices, and electronic health record support. This initiative will help small primary care practices incorporate the most recent evidence on how best to deliver the ABCS of cardiovascular prevention into their patients’ care – Aspirin use by high risk individuals, Blood pressure control, Cholesterol management, and Smoking cessation. The seven implementation grants will run for three years. Funding for this initiative comes from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund created by the Affordable Care Act.
For more information about AHRQ’s EvidenceNOW initiative, including details on each of the grantees and cooperatives, visit: http://www.ahrq.gov/evidencenow.html