Kaiser Permanente grant to San Mateo Medical Center improves heart health in county.

Kaiser Permanente announced a $500,000 grant to the San Mateo Medical Center (SMMC) to help increase access to care for people who are at greatest risk for heart attacks and strokes. The grant is part of a larger, $5.8 million investment aimed at expanding the reach and scope of the organization’s Preventing Heart Attacks and Strokes Every day (PHASE) program, as well as additional resources to support training and technical assistance aimed at optimizing implementation of the program in community settings.

The grant to San Mateo Medical Center will increase the number of PHASE clinics and add more than a thousand new patients to the program there, as well as other benefits.

PHASE combines generic, effective, and well-tolerated medications and lifestyle changes to provide an evidence-based, cost-effective treatment for people with existing heart disease and those at greatest risk for developing it, including individuals with diabetes who are ages 55 years and older. The heart healthy regimen has helped Kaiser Permanente reduce heart attacks and stroke-related hospital admissions among its own members by 60 percent since it began the program in 2002. Kaiser Permanente has been sharing the program with community health centers through a combination of grant funding, clinical expertise, and physician mentors since 2006.

"PHASE works," says Dr. Mike Ren, Chief of Cardiology at Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center. "Not only have we seen heart attacks and strokes decrease dramatically in our members, but our patients are consistently taking their medications, and adopting healthy lifestyle changes like increased exercise and healthy diets to improve their heart health. Adopting our program in the community clinics has improved the heart health for all Californians, making California a leader in the reduction of vascular disease mortality nationwide.”

Today, 112 clinic sites in Northern California, which includes 25 public hospital/health department clinics (representing 4 public hospital systems) and 87 clinic sites from 32 health centers (representing 4 consortia) are providing care to more than 120,000 patients with diabetes and hypertension.