Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-19-2021

Comments

This article is the author’s final published version in Journal of the American Heart Association, Volume 10, Issue 20, October 2021, Article number e020605.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.120.020605. Copyright © Chowdhury et al.

Abstract

The congenital heart care community faces a myriad of public health issues that act as barriers toward optimum patient outcomes. In this article, we attempt to define advocacy and policy initiatives meant to spotlight and potentially address these challenges. Issues are organized into the following 3 key facets of our community: patient population, health care delivery, and workforce. We discuss the social determinants of health and health care disparities that affect patients in the community that require the attention of policy makers. Furthermore, we highlight the many needs of the growing adults with congenital heart disease and those with comorbidities, highlighting concerns regarding the inequities in access to cardiac care and the need for multidisciplinary care. We also recognize the problems of transparency in outcomes reporting and the promising application of telehealth. Finally, we highlight the training of providers, measures of productivity, diversity in the workforce, and the importance of patient– family centered organizations in advocating for patients. Although all of these issues remain relevant to many subspecialties in medicine, this article attempts to illustrate the unique needs of this population and highlight ways in which to work together to address important opportunities for change in the cardiac care community and beyond. This article provides a framework for policy and advocacy efforts for the next decade.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Language

English

PubMed ID

34622676

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