In the Community

April 26, 2007

Kaiser Permanente Makes Lifesaving "Healthy Heart" Program Available to All Americans at No Charge

Oakland, Calif. - For the first time, Kaiser Permanente is making available its lifesaving "Healthy Heart" program information to all California physicians and the general public.

Kaiser Permanente also is collaborating with public hospitals and community caregivers to bring its innovative cardiovascular care program to underserved populations, so that others may benefit from the program that has saved thousands of lives in the nation's largest integrated care provider.

Kaiser Permanente executives and physicians announced the initiative at a news conference Thursday, April 26. There they were joined by officials such as California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who also is a KP member.

Healthy Heart provides tools and guidelines to help assess the risk of cardiovascular disease, manage those risks, and ultimately reduce a patient's risks that can lead to death. Kaiser Permanente's "open source" approach to the general public and community caregivers will include:

• A new Healthy Heart public website, launched April 26, which features Kaiser Permanente's cardiovascular disease prevention tools and clinical content.
• Grants to community clinics and public hospitals to fund expanded cardiovascular intervention programs along the lines of those successful programs at Kaiser Permanente
• Consulting services and resources that will be made available at no cost to community clinics, health centers and public hospitals across California. These will be especially important in rural are4as, where doctors may not have exposure to the kind of data and best practices information that Kaiser Permanente can share with them.

For more information, view the news release and the Healthy Heart website. Members of the media can watch a recorded webcast of the news conference through June 26. Members of the media interested in this story should contact the Kaiser Permanente News Center.