Million Hearts™: preventing a million heart attacks and strokes through public–private collaboration

Janet S Wright speaks to Caroline Telfer, Assistant Commissioning Editor. Janet S Wright is the Executive Director of Million Hearts™, a US Department of Health and Human Services initiative with the explicit goal of preventing a million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. From May 2008–September 2011, Dr Wright served as Senior Vice President for Science and Quality at the American College of Cardiology (ACC). The division she led at the ACC encompasses the clinical guidelines, performance measures, health policy statements and appropriate-use criteria; quality improvement projects such as Door-to-Balloon and Hospital-to-Home; and the National Cardiovascular Data Registry, a suite of databases containing over 12 million patient records in both inpatient and outpatient care settings. Prior to joining the ACC, Dr Wright spent many years in practice in Chico, CA, USA. Dr Wright served on the ACC’s Board of Trustees and chaired the Task Force on Performance Assessment, Recognition, Reinforcement, Reward and R...