The National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention annually recognizes individuals and organizations that have helped advance heart disease and stroke prevention above and beyond the norm. The California Right Care Initiative is the recipient of this year’s Heart Healthy Stroke Free Award. This award is given to an individual and group in the field of public health whose work embodies the recommendations of the Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke. This selection was awarded to California Right Care Initiative for exceptional leadership and collaboration to carry out the National Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke.
Here is a quote from Hattie Hanley, MPP, Director & Founder, Right Care Initiative, UC Berkeley School of Public Health, Center for Health Organizational and Innovation Research (CHOIR):
“What an honor to have received this “Hearth Healthy Stroke Free Award 2021″ from the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention recognizing the gains we’ve made with laser focus & persistent dedication to protecting families from these preventable devastating events that can often send families into poverty. It has been so gratifying to see our collaborative, The California Right Care Initiative, based at our UCB School of Public Health, thriving even during the pandemic, where our participants in our best practices sharing activities now often include federal participants, and those from other states. Right Care Director Hattie Rees Hanley MPP first reached out to me in 2007 when she was grappling with concern over managed care clinical performance data related to the prevention and management of Heart Attacks, Strokes, and Diabetes. Together, we built a collaborative across the state of California to drive performance improvement in three critically important measures: control of cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar. Our NIH funded regional pilot is associated with a 22% decline in acute myocardial infarction hospitalizations in one community of focus, sustained over several years, according to articles published in the American Journal of Managed Care and Health Affairs by Professors Fulton, Ivey, Rodriguez and colleagues at RAND Corporation and UCSD.”