Million Hearts®

Million Hearts® aims to prevent at least one million heart attacks and strokes in five years. Since 2012, the national has coordinated and enhanced cardiovascular disease prevention activities across public and private sectors and has brought together existing efforts and new programs to improve health across communities. Million Hearts® measures include the “ABCS”: Aspirin therapy, Blood pressure control, Cholesterol management and Smoking cessation. The work of Million Hearts® is to improve the ABCS and APHNs focus is on improving blood pressure control in the community.

APHN has been part of the Million® Hearts Collaboration since 2015, collaborating with partners to promote evidence-based strategies to prevent and manage heart disease and stroke.

Call to Action for Nurses
Read this recent call to action for nurses to improve hypertension control.
Worldviews Ev Based Nurs 2022.pdf

Academic-Practice Partnerships to Advance Million Hearts®
APHN is part of the National Interprofessional Education and Practice Consortium to Advance Million Hearts® at The Ohio State University College of Nursing (OSU). OSU provides APHN members with free access and continuing education credits for completion of their Million Hearts® Fellowship Module. The module introduces Million Hearts® and provides training on performing and interpreting biometric screening in the community and motivational interviewing. As part of earning the CE credits, each participant is asked to provide 10 screenings in their own community, allowing APHN to contribute to OSUs goal of providing 100,000 biometric screenings across the U.S. by 2022. As of August 2021, 63 APHN members have completed the Million Hearts® Fellowship Module, which includes providing at least 630 screenings in their communities!

Academic-Practice Partnerships with community/public health can help communities prioritize cardiovascular disease prevention. Here is an example: An Academic-Practice Partnership to Advance Million Hearts Cooper 2021.pdf

Million Hearts® in Municipalities Toolkit
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) have developed the Million Hearts® in Municipalities Toolkit, a tool to help city, county, state, and regional partners implement Million Hearts® at the local level. The toolkit includes 5 modules that can be used, individually or as a package, to tackle capacity needs related to goal-setting, partnerships, communications, and evaluation and monitoring. Partners are encouraged to use one or more of the modules to address capacity needs related to goal-setting, partnerships, communications, and evaluation and monitoring progress. Each module includes a list of online resources that may be used to inform program design and implementation. You can also explore NACCHO’s past Million Hearts® in Municipalities success stories to get a sense of how communities in the U.S. are taking action.

We invite you to help Million Hearts® and NACCHO in getting this new tool into the hands of leaders who are committed to preventing heart disease and stroke in their communities.