A collaborative team of cardiology staff nurses and advanced practice nurses (APNs) joined together in an effort to increase women's awareness of heart disease and offer affordable cardiovascular (CV) risk screenings and risk factor counseling to an underprivileged, inner city population in northern New Jersey. The team of staff nurses and APNs from the cardiology department at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center provides multilingual community outreach programs to ethnically diverse groups of women in houses of worship, schools, health fairs, community groups and corporations.
In addition to community outreach, the Women's Heart team has partnered with OB/GYN physicians to identify women who are at risk for heart disease. Many middle-aged women only seek routine medical care from their OB/GYN physicians. Decreased awareness of CV risk factors in women and undertreatment of these risk factors is common, because it is not the typical focus for this physician group. This collaboration has led to many referrals from OB/GYN physicians to our Women's Heart Center screening program and resulted in the identification of numerous women who were at risk for cardiovascular disease.
Presenting symptoms of CV disease in women are often more subtle than the classic symptoms seen in men. Since the Emergency Department (ED) staff is often the first to evaluate these women, inservices are provided for the ED nurses and paramedics. Early recognition of acute coronary events in women prior to hospital arrival and immediately upon arrival at the ED can facilitate treatment and improve outcomes. Nurses familiar with the symptomatology of CV disease in women can refer those women who did not have an acute event to the Women's Heart Center for further risk evaluation and testing.
Since the program began, approximately 2,500 women have attended the educational lectures and 900 women have undergone the cardiovascular screening offered by the APNs.
