Frequently Asked Questions

ASCVD or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is a general term for a few disorders caused by the build-up of plaque in the blood vessel walls.  Risk factors for ASCVD include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and smoking.  These risk factors can lead to stroke, heart attack, and other illness.  ASCVD is the leading cause of morbidity (sickness) and mortality (death) in the United States.

High blood pressure and cholesterol are often "silent" issues that we don't notice until they get very serious.  It's important to take action early to prevent problems in future.  Penn Medicine Healthy Heart is a new approach that helps patients lower their risk from home.  Read about these conditions and maintaining a healthy heart from the American Heart Association.

You can calculate your ASCVD risk online using the American College of Cardiology's ASCVD Risk Estimator. 

There are several important steps to lower your risk of ASCVD, including:

• Control high blood pressure (hypertension)
• Lower your cholesterol 
• Quit smoking
• Eat a heart-healthy diet
• Be physically active
• Keep a healthy body weight

You can learn more about these topics and how Penn Medicine Healthy Heart can make a difference at:

• Blood pressure
• Cholesterol
• Healthy eating
• Smoking treatment

The ASCVD Risk Reduction Initiative is a five-year program to improve the ways that health care providers and patients improve heart health.  The Initiative is focused on patients with ASCVD or atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and at higher risk of ASCVD.  Our flagship program is Penn Medicine Healthy Heart. 

The Initiative is led by a diverse team of doctors, nurses, researchers, staff, and valued contributors including patients, community members, and primary care providers. The senior leader on the Initiative is Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, founding Director of the Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics and the Mark V. Pauly President’s Distinguished Professor at Perelman School of Medicine and Health Care Management at the Wharton School.  In 2022, Dr. Volpp was named a Distinguished Scientist by the American Heart Association.  Dr. Volpp survived a heart attack in 2021 and has spoken about his experience.

The Initiative was launched in June 2021 with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program through the Perelman School of Medicine Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics.  The Initiative is also supported by funding from Penn Medicine.

Penn Medicine Healthy Heart helps you lower your blood pressure and cholesterol from home.  Lowering blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol is an important step that you can take now to prevent heart disease, heart attack, and stroke in the future.  If you've tried to lower your BP and cholesterol before, Healthy Heart is a fresh start! 

Healthy Heart is a texting program, meaning that we will communicate with you about your health via text message.  We may also contact you by phone or schedule a video visit if you need.  The program is six months long.  During the program, a Penn Medicine nurse practitioner and patient navigator will work with you on four topics: Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, Healthy Eating, and Smoking.  

Healthy Heart is open at this time to patients between the ages of 35 and 80 who have a Penn Medicine primary care provider in West and Southwest Philadelphia and Lancaster County.  In addition, you need to have high blood pressure, untreated or under-treated high cholesterol, and one of the following conditions: cardiovascular disease, a high risk of cardiovascular disease, or diabetes.  If you are contacted by Penn Medicine Healthy Heart, you have been identified as someone who could benefit from better blood pressure and cholesterol control.  Our team and your primary care provider reviewed your latest blood pressure and bloodwork and agreed that this program could be a good fit for you.

Patients who enroll in Healthy Heart will get coaching, text reminders, and education about maintaining healthy heart practices including blood pressure, cholesterol, healthy eating, and smoking treatment for six months. 

• In Month 1, you will receive a free blood pressure monitor and text message reminders to check your BP for three days in a row.  You will have a patient navigator to answer questions and a nurse practitioner to help manage your BP.  We will also send you links to healthy eating videos and recipes and ask if you want to speak to a nutritionist.
• In Month 2, you will do your second BP check to see how you are doing.
• In Month 3, you will do a BP check.  We will also call to talk to you about lowering your cholesterol.  There are medicine and lifestyle options you can chose.  We can also help you recheck your cholesterol level.
• In Month 4, you will do a BP check. 
• In Month 5, you will do a BP check.  We will also call to talk to you about smoking use and smoking treatment.
• In Month 6, you will do a BP check.  We're here to answer any questions as you wrap-up the program! 

When it's time to graduate from the program after Month 6, we'll text you for one final BP check.  We'll also help you do a cholesterol screening at a local lab.  These final checks will help you and your care team see how you are doing and how well the program worked for you.  We will send you a gift card to thank you for completing these two final checks.

After six months in the program, you will graduate from Healthy Heart!  You will submit one last set of blood pressure readings via text and complete a cholesterol (lipid) test so we can see how well the program worked to improve your risk of heart disease.  You will receive a gift card for completing these last steps in the program and to thank you for your time. You can go to any Penn lab at your convenience to get bloodwork done; if you prefer an outside lab we can also arrange that.  After completing the program, your blood pressure and cholesterol will be managed by your primary care provider.  Healthy Heart will send a summary of your progress in the program to your primary care provider at this time and let them know you have finished the program. 

Penn Medicine Healthy Heart aims to extend the capacity of primary care providers to help patients at high cardiovascular risk to lower BP and cholesterol from the convenience of home. Enrolled patients will be easily identified in the Epic storyboard. Standardized documentation will be available in the patient’s chart. Learn more by downloading our practice one-pager.  Please contact us with questions or concerns.

We will contact you each month for six months to ask you to check your blood pressure. During your monthly BP check, you will get one text reminder in the morning and one in the evening for three days in a row. You may get extra text messages or calls from a navigator if we don’t hear from you, so we can support your needs. If you are taking a BP or cholesterol medicine, we will text you once a month to ask if you have been taking them. It is important to take your medicine regularly. You will get a few text messages about healthy eating and cholesterol. Text messaging and data rates from your cellular carrier may apply.

Yes, Penn Medicine Healthy Heart will be in touch with your primary care provider (PCP).  We are excited to work with them as part of your care team. First, we will send your PCP your information to review before we reach out to you about the program.  Your PCP will have a chance to make sure the program is a good fit for you.  If you enroll, we will keep your PCP up to date about your process.  They will be able to see your BP numbers in your medical chart.  They will also see if you start or change any medications.  At the end of the program, we will send a summary of your progress to your PCP.  

First and foremost, we are using your data to manage your health care.  The Healthy Heart team uses your blood pressure, cholesterol, and other information in your medical record to make a personalized plan that improves your health.  The overall goal is to lower your risk of heart disease in the long term.  

Second, we are studying whether Penn Medicine Healthy Heart works or doesn’t work to see if it is worth offering the program to more patients.  We are asking patients to share a blood pressure and cholesterol result with us after six months in the program.  Sharing this final result is voluntary.  We hope you will share it with us because it will help us bring the program to more patients. 

Security and privacy of patient information is very important to us.  Penn Medicine must follow a law called HIPAA. HIPAA says how we can and can’t use patient information. Patient information for Healthy Heart will be collected, viewed, and stored through secure systems like the electronic medical record and secure databases.  If you do not wish your data to be used, please email your request to healthyheart@pennmedicine.upenn.edu or call 215-278-9539. 

Yes and no.  Healthy Heart is a new program at Penn Medicine that’s trying a different way to help patients improve their blood pressure and cholesterol.  We use the same medications and health goals that your primary care provider (PCP) does.  But because the program is new, we want to know whether it works before offering it to all patients.  We are opening Healthy Heart to some patients for six months.  We’re going to study whether the blood pressure and cholesterol of those people are better at the end of six months compared to people who don’t take part.

You will never receive a bill or copay for labs or virtual care provided by the Healthy Heart program. Medications, referrals to specialty care, or primary care visits that we may recommend to you are not covered by the program and will be billed to your insurance as with usual care. Text and data rates from your cell phone carrier may also apply.

Learn more about the exciting work underway at Penn Medicine:

• For American Heart Month, Penn Medicine News featured Healthy Heart - a personal companion to heart health! Read the full article.
• For American Heart Month, the Lancaster General Health Hub shared a blog post about Healthy Heart and ways to reduce blood pressure and cholesterol. Read the full article.
• Penn Medicine researchers from the ASCVD Risk Reduction Initiative compared an automated referral process to traditional prescribing methods and found a potential advantage for cholesterol reduction. Read the full article.

If you are enrolled in the program, you can send an alert to your navigator by text:

• I am a patient at a Penn Medicine practice in Philadelphia County: Text CALL to ‪‪215-398-4459‬‬
• I am a patient at a Penn Medicine practice in Lancaster County: Text CALL to ‪717-788-8428‬

You can also email us at healthyheart@pennmedicine.upenn.edu or call us at 215-278-9539.