Stronger Hearts™ Helpline

• Assistance finding heart failure professionals and clinics.
• Additional information about heart failure and its treatment.
• Help with arranging non-emergency needs, like transportation to a doctor’s appointment, delivery of prescription medications, and finding exercise programs, nutrition information, and mental health programs.

Approximately 5.1 million Americans live with heart failure. This disease is often hard to understand and even harder to manage for many patients and their caregivers. This is a major problem for the U.S. and its seniors as:

• Approximately 14% of Medicare patients are being treated for heart failure – that’s about 1 in 5 seniors.
• Heart failure treatment accounts for more than $30.7 billion annually nationwide.
• About 50% of people diagnosed with heart failure die within five years of diagnosis.

The Claremont Evaluation Center (CEC) at Claremont Graduate University collaborated with the National Forum to evaluate the Stronger Hearts™ Helpline pilot. The 18-month, multi-phase evaluation included:

• evaluate helpline components (e.g., availability and quality of existing services and role of incentives),
• evaluate helpline outcomes (e.g., quality of life, number of CHF patient admissions and readmissions, costs associated with those admissions, and length of stay) and,
• map the helpline’s role in building a Culture of Health, with a focus on its current contributions and potential leverage points.