• Patient Education & Collaboration

    Unbroken Hearts: SCAI's Campaign to Share the Value of Interventional Cardiology

    In 2015, SCAI launched “Unbroken Hearts,” an initiative that shares the stories of patients facing serious or unique heart conditions and how their condition was successfully treated through fast action, the latest technology and the skills and problem-solving acumen of interventional cardiologists and their cath lab teams. The stories help evoke the drama of the life-and-death situations often faced in interventional cardiovascular medicine, while also bringing a better understanding to the science and technology of treating heart disease and showing what patients may experience during their heart journeys.

    Unbroken Hearts stories are published on SCAI's SecondsCount website. Take a look at a few of the stories:

    All of the Unbroken Hearts stories have been shared, liked and tweeted through the world of social media. People aren’t just reading these stories on the SecondsCount website. They are engaging with them, too. For example,

    • Tony’s story has been watched more than 55,000 times and received more than 2,300 likes on Facebook. He and his interventional cardiologist, Robert Applegate, MD, FSCAI, were featured on Fox Affiliate WGHP-TV.
    • Curtis’ story had already achieved approximately 125,000 engagements on Facebook and was featured on FoxNews.com, which receives 60 million visitors per year.
    • In it's first five days online, Ian’s story reached more than 100,000 viewers and was liked by nearly 3,000 Facebook users. 

    The story of these patients is really the story of interventional cardiology. SCAI is eager to share these stories and has found that people are eager to listen.

    You can participate in Unbroken Hearts. Here are quick and easy ways to do so:

    • Retweet @SecondsCountOrg when we share Unbroken Hearts stories. Please make note to use the hashtag #UnbrokenHearts.
    • Share Unbroken Hearts stories on Facebook from the SecondsCount.org Facebook page. You can become a fan of the page by clicking here.
    • When we post new stories on our site, share the link via email or post the link to your social channels, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

    Unbroken Hearts is supported by grants from Abbott and Abiomed. SCAI gratefully acknowledges this support while taking sole responsibility for all content developed and disseminated through this effort.

     

     

    Patient Education & Public Awareness

    SCAI’s mission is to promote excellence in invasive and interventional cardiovascular care. The Society achieves this mission through physician education and the advancement of quality standards, as well as programs for patients, their families and the public. Put simply, SCAI believes that educated patients lead to better care, and has committed to a number of initiatives that increase patient and public awareness of cardiovascular disease and treatment options.

     


    "You & Your Stent" – An Educational Video for Patients and Their Families

    In 2013, SCAI partnered with Daiichi Sankyo/Eli Lilly to develop the unbranded video, "You and Your Stent" for patients who have undergone a coronary angioplasty procedure. The video is available on SCAI’s public education website, SecondsCount.org, and is provided here as a resource for SCAI members and other healthcare providers. You are invited to download the video for use in your practice. The 10-minute video is divided into several short chapters that can be viewed individually or collectively. We hope you and your patients will find it helpful.

    "You & Your Stent" is provided compliments of Daiichi Sankyo/Eli Lilly in Partnership with SCAI. Copyright © 2013 Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. and Lilly USA, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


    Download "You and Your Stent" video chapters:

    In response to popular demand, a Spanish version of the video was developed.

    Download "You and Your Stent" in Spanish/en Español

    In response to requests from healthcare providers, the video has been translated into Spanish. You are invited to download the video in English, Spanish or both.

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    Be Sure to Prescribe SecondsCount to Your Patients

    One of SCAI’s most successful public awareness initiatives has been www.SecondsCount.org, an evidence-based website developed by leading healthcare providers, specifically for cardiovascular patients and the people who love them. Attracting thousands of visitors per month, SecondsCount.org provides patients with in-depth information about cardiovascular health, heart and vascular conditions, tests, and treatment options. Users access useful tools for tracking their symptoms, following their healthcare providers’ recommendations, and holding productive conversa­tions with their doctors about tests and therapies they are considering.

    SCAI’s other public education campaigns include a public service announcement featuring two-time Super Bowl-winning Coach Jimmy Johnson, free heart disease screenings, community awareness programs, and more. SCAI also works throughout the year with patient advocacy organizations such as Mended Hearts, Mended Little Hearts, WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease, and Sister to Sister: The Women’s Heart Health Foundation.

    For more information about SCAI’s public education initiatives, email info@SCAI.org.

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    SCAI Presidents Deliver Cardiovascular Education at Mended Hearts Conferences


    Educated Patients Lead to Better Care.     That’s the philosophy behind SecondsCount.org and all of SCAI’s public education programs. It’s also at the heart of SCAI’s ongoing partnership with Mended Hearts and Mended Little Hearts, patient support groups whose members are always on the lookout for new information they can use to improve their own health and share with heart disease patients they visit in hospitals across the United States.

    At the Mended Hearts 2014 convention, Dr. Chambers presented “Cardiovascular Imaging:  Knowledge for the Informed Patient” to a full house of patients and their families, each of whom will take what they learned back to their local chapters. Dr. Chambers fielded a wide variety of questions about how doctors monitor the cumulative radiation and how healthcare providers evaluate the benefits of the test and what it reveals against any risks.

    At the 2013 Mended Hearts Conference, then-President Ted A. Bass, MD, FSCAI, delivered the keynote, focusing on three new research areas with potential to dramatically advance cardiovascular care:  transcatheter aortic valve replacement, cell therapy for refractory angina, and bioabsorbable stents. "Death from cardiovascular disease has declined significantly," he said. "Some of this progress is a result of what you are doing with healthy lifestyle choices, and some of it is from what we are doing with progress in treatment."

    Dr. Bass stressed the importance not just of new therapies, but also of tracking and measuring the impact of care, so "we can keep getting better." He urged patients to seek physicians who are committed to quality improvement, both in their cath labs and as individual healthcare providers. "A good place to start," said Dr. Bass, "is by looking for the FSCAI designation." 

    Also featured at the 2013 Mended Hearts conference was SCAI Credentials Committee Co-chair Jeffrey Cavendish, MD, FSCAI, who discussed "Living with Afib."  Dr. Cavendish divides his time between the cath lab and a busy clinical practice, about half of which involves treating atrial fibrillation, which now affects nearly 6 million people in the United States. "There is substantial variability in how patients live with atrial fibrillation," said Dr. Cavendish, "which is why part of my job as a cardiologist is to work with each patient on an individualized care plan. With some patients, the focus might be on medications to control the heart rate, while with others it might be cardioversions or ablations." 

    The Mended Hearts audience was particularly interested in stroke prevention, so Dr. Cavendish updated them on the indications for aspirin versus warfarin and the newer oral anticoagulants.

    • SecondsCount educational materials were a hit with Mended Hearts conference attendees. You can download them for your patients here. 

    • To learn more about Mended Hearts and how its visiting program could help your patients, click here. 

    • To learn more about Mended Little Hearts and the support services it provides to the families of children with congenital heart defects, click here.

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