The American Heart Association has launched Primary Care Perspectives, a new platform designed to help primary care professionals recognize heart failure risk earlier and manage patients with overlapping cardiovascular, kidney, and metabolic conditions. Supported by Bayer, the initiative addresses the growing complexity of managing patients with multiple risk factors such as Type 2 diabetes, obesity, chronic kidney disease, and cardiovascular disease, which often precede heart failure.
Nearly 7 million Americans live with heart failure, a number expected to rise. Primary care professionals are often the first point of contact for at-risk patients, yet face barriers such as limited time, fragmented guidance, and underused screening tools. The platform aims to provide practical education and tools that reflect real-world primary care settings, helping clinicians make informed decisions and support patients before heart failure becomes more difficult to manage.
The first initiative under the platform, Heart Failure in Primary Care, focuses on heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and mildly reduced ejection fraction (HFmrEF). This three-year initiative includes a core curriculum, screening tools, professional education, certification opportunities, and peer-to-peer learning. It will kick off with an educational webinar on June 29, 2026, titled "Early Diagnosis and Initial Management of Heart Failure in Primary Care."
According to Eduardo Sanchez, MD, MPH, FAHA, chief medical officer for prevention at the American Heart Association, primary care professionals are managing increasing complexity and need support to recognize risk earlier. Robert Perkins, M.D., M.P.H., FACP, vice president of U.S. medical affairs cardiovascular and renal at Bayer, emphasized that heart failure places a significant burden on patients and health systems, and this initiative will help clinicians identify risk earlier.
Even with established guidelines, many eligible patients hospitalized with heart failure do not receive guideline-directed medical therapy at discharge. By focusing on earlier identification and management in primary care, the initiative aims to improve long-term outcomes and reduce preventable disease progression. Additional resources include the 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA Guideline for the Management of Heart Failure and the Heart Failure in Primary Care page on Professional Heart Daily. For more information, visit heart.org.
