Heart health care and services
Committed to helping more Americans get ahead of heart attacks and stroke
Taking on heart health
Heart disease — also known as cardiovascular (CVD) disease — is the leading cause of death for Black, Native American and Hispanic people, as well as for White men.1 And, disturbingly, non-Hispanic Black people are at a far higher risk of dying from heart attacks and strokes compared with non-Hispanic White people.
At CVS Health®, we’re helping fight this silent killer — while helping the patients and communities who are most impacted. That means partnering to raise awareness, offering free screenings events and giving patients the support they need to care for heart conditions once diagnosed.
Committing to health equity
A person’s ability to get care for heart-related conditions can impact the quality of diagnosis, symptom relief and threat of premature death.
At CVS Health, we’re putting our full strength behind reducing disparities and improving health outcomes for those with heart disease. Our four focus areas are education and awareness, testing and screening, access to care, and treatment optimization.
Ways we’re improving heart health
Many people at risk for a heart attack or stroke don’t know it. And more than 1 in 3 women live with some form of CVD, the number one killer of women. Since 2017, we’ve been the national presenting sponsor of the American Heart Association Go Red for Women movement, which raises awareness and inspires life-saving lifestyle changes.
And through our health equity initiative, we’ve create a wraparound community engagement strategy to further reach vulnerable populations. We’re working with physicians, patient support groups, community leaders, faith-based groups, health systems and academic centers to help champion education for condition management.
A special outreach program run by CVS Pharmacy®, Project Health takes free health screening and education into many of the communities that stand to benefit most. Those who are found through these screenings to be at risk of heart disease and stroke can ask questions about the condition and treatment.
Through our health equity initiative, we’re taking the additional step of identifying at risk communities and working with plan clients to increase access to testing and screening for plan members.
Our neighborhood MinuteClinic® walk-in clinics in select CVS Pharmacy locations can help patients work to prevent — or care for — heart disease. It’s a convenient, affordable way to get treated or stay on track between doctor visits.
Our providers can screen, assess, treat and monitor patients at risk. They also can order lab tests, recommend lifestyle changes, prescribe needed medications and educate — all with a focus on lowering the possibility of a heart attack or stroke.
As part of our health equity initiative, we’re also referring patients and at-risk plan members who require additional medical care to no- or low-cost medical facilities or back to their primary care physicians.
We’re driven to find the most efficient, clinicially rigorous path to care — for those participating in our health equity initiative as well as for plan members.
That means finding the most effective treatments at the lowest cost and looking at how to ensure adherence to therapy. It also means meeting people where they are with convenient, ongoing clinical support at nearby MinuteClinic locations, putting them in touch with certified specialists and connecting them to care with digital tools.
1 Source: Virani SS, Alonso A, Aparicio HJ, Benjamin EJ, Bittencourt MS, Callaway CW, Carson AP, Chamberlain AM, Cheng S, Delling FN, Elkind MSV, Evenson KR, Ferguson JF, Gupta DK, Khan SS, Kissela BM, Knutson KL, Lee CD, Lewis TT, Liu J, Loop MS, Lutsey PL, Ma J, Mackey J, Martin SS, Matchar DB, Mussolino ME, Navaneethan SD, Perak AM, Roth GA, Samad Z, Satou GM, Schroeder EB, Shah SH, Shay CM, Stokes A, VanWagner LB, Wang N-Y, Tsao CW on behalf of the American Heart Association Council on Epidemiology and Prevention Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. 2021 heart disease and stroke statistics update fact sheet at a glance [PDF]. American Heart Association heart.org. Published online ahead of print January 27, 2021. Accessed May 5, 2022.
2 Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Heart disease facts. CDC.gov. Reviewed February 7, 2022. Accessed May 5, 2022.