​Healthy Hearts for Oklahoma: A NaRCAD Collaboration for Change

Mike Fischer, MD, MS
At NaRCAD, we work together with our many partners, collaborating on important interventions to improve patient health through clinical outreach education. This summer, we’re especially looking forward to a unique collaboration to improve cardiovascular health, as we travel to Oklahoma to support the Healthy Hearts for Oklahoma project, part of AHRQ’s EvidenceNow initiative.

EvidenceNow is a group of 7 large studies across the United States working to improve cardiovascular care in small primary care practices. Along with materials development and program support, the NaRCAD team will travel to Oklahoma City in July to train over 20 health professionals, teaching them how to provide the service of academic detailing to participating practices.  Focusing on the ‘ABCS’ (aspirin use, blood pressure control, cholesterol management, and smoking cessation), the professionals we train will carry out academic detailing visits in order to present best evidence to participating practices.

By using the skills and techniques of AD to assess the needs of clinicians and practices throughout Oklahoma, the detailers we train will gain commitment from clinicians to commit to practice change. The Healthy Hearts for Oklahoma project will visit hundreds of practices, tracking these practices’ behaviors over time. Ultimately, the evidence generated by Healthy Hearts and the other EvidenceNow studies will yield key insights about how best to bring evidence to diverse practice settings and improve the cardiovascular health of all Americans.

Supporting organizations that are carrying out important work such as this is at the core of who we are and what we do. The positive impact of academic detailing can be amplified with each new intervention, program, or even a single visit to a clinician. As we enter into our 5th year as the only nationally available resource center for for academic detailing, the strength of the relationships we build makes it possible for clinical outreach education to serve more practices and have a greater impact on patient health.

We’ll share highlights from the Healthy Hearts for Oklahoma project and other exciting collaborations with our subscribers this fall. In the meantime, we’d love to see you at a future Boston-based training, or at our 3rd annual International Conference on Academic Detailing this fall—join us as we work together to advance the field of clinical outreach education.

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