Bringing CHD Knowledge to the Public

So I’ve been brainstorming all of these small lifestyle changes that people could make in order to prevent their development of coronary heart disease (CHD). However, it is just as important to reach out to the people who have already experienced the onset of heart disease, and to relay information on how to contain it. As the disease continues to spread as the world’s most prominent cause of death, its impact on the community escalates, and the need for accessible CHD information and resources has become a key necessity.

As of August 31st, the American College of Cardiology teamed up with Google to create a set of questions that patients most commonly ask their doctors about coronary heart disease, heart attack, stroke, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, and hypertension. They published this list in a new, online search tool called “Ask a Doctor”. This feature will allow patients to conduct an in-depth search about their conditions from a credible source. They’ve taken the new technological revolution by the horns and used it to their advantage, helping patients save time and money.

Ask a Doctor’s guidelines were developed by leading cardiology experts around the country, who were contacted by the ACC looking to increase public access to CHD information. Their ultimate goal with this new development is to make it easier for patients to fully understand the details of their health conditions. Often times, doctors can forget to translate their vast medical knowledge into layman’s terms, and it can leave patients feeling confused and frustrated because they don’t understand what’s happening in their own body. This way, patients can do some research beforehand from a reliable source, and then go into their doctor’s appointments with some background knowledge and have a more engaged conversation about their care. This tool isn’t necessarily intended to help give people medical advice on how to treat their heart disease, but rather educate them so that they know what questions they should ask their doctor. As stated by the Chief Innovation Officer at ACC, “this is a unique opportunity to marry the broad reach and power of Google’s Internet search engine with the clinical and scientific expertise of the ACC.” Ultimately, this is just one step in arming the community with medical knowledge regarding CHD, and will hopefully aid in the spread of heart disease awareness.