Senator Susan Collins is a co-sponsor of the HEART (Heart Disease Education, Analysis, Research, and Treatment) for Women Act. This bipartisan legislation, a top priority of the American Heart Association, takes a multi-pronged approach to improving the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease and stroke.
This legislation would raise awareness of the threat of heart disease and stroke through grants to better educate women and their health care providers about the prevalence and unique aspects of care for women in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. It also would provide funding for the Medicare program to conduct an educational awareness campaign for older women about their risk for heart disease and stroke.
It would strengthen analysis, research, and treatment efforts for women. Experts believe that a primary reason women are at such great risk is that the preponderance of studies have been targeted at men. As a result, women with heart disease are less likely to be diagnosed until their disease is at an advanced stage and less likely to receive aggressive treatment. In many cases, it is not even known whether new drugs approved by the FDA to treat cardiovascular diseases are safe and effective in women.
The HEART for Women Act would address this shortcoming by requiring that health care data that are already being reported to the federal government be broken down by gender, as well as by race and ethnicity. This information would include clinical trial results, and data on pharmaceutical and medical device approval, medical errors, hospital quality, and quality improvement. This body of knowledge will greatly increase the ability of our health care providers to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease among their female patients.