Healthy Hearts in Manufacturing: Improving Cardiovascular Care in Worksite Health Clinics

https://reporter.nih.gov/search/aQGOBwCMz0CHi0EkmxhqzA/project-details/10915578 “Manufacturing communities have significantly higher rates of smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes and cardiovascular deaths,” according to AHRQ grantee Megan McHugh, Ph.D., professor of emergency medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. McHugh, who is also director of the School’s Manufacturing and Health Research Program, believes that the work environment, lifestyle issues and, in some communities, limited access to healthcare are causing these deficiencies. She has made it her mission to improve health outcomes in manufacturing communities by implementing strategies that address these issues while also aiming to reduce the cost of care for employers. Dr. McHugh began by targeting heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States. With her five-year AHRQ grant, she works directly with large manufacturers’ worksite health centers to improve heart care by implementing proven interventions for high blood pressure and tobacco cessation. Dr. McHugh and her team are currently partnering with these centers to offer evidence-based interventions drawn from AHRQ’s EvidenceNOW initiative, which provides a blueprint for delivering external support to primary care practices to improve care delivery. The project, Healthy Hearts in Manufacturing, has already yielded some early findings. Specifically, worksite health centers have the capacity to accommodate more patients, can bring patients back for routine followups more easily than community-based primary care and experience less pressure to keep patient visits brief. Preliminary results also suggest lower rates of burnout among worksite health center clinicians compared with those in community-based primary care.