WASHINGTON and NEW YORK, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and WebMD (NASDAQ:WBMD), the leading provider of health information for consumers, physicians and healthcare professionals, today announced a new partnership to help educate both clinicians and patients on cardiovascular risk reduction.
For healthcare practitioners, the initiative will include continuing education activities, cardiovascular news and patient information. The program, "Cardiovascular Risk Reduction: Putting Guidelines into Practice to Improve Outcomes," will be jointly developed by Medscape, the leading portal for physicians and healthcare professionals from WebMD, and ACC. It will address the educational needs of cardiologists, primary care physicians, other health care professionals, as well as patients.
For consumers, the ACC and WebMD also announced today plans to collaborate on a consumer health initiative that will make new, patient-friendly resources available to all Americans. At WebMD.com, a co-branded information center will leverage the latest clinical insights from ACC, with WebMD's credible news and content. At ACC's newly-launched CardioSmart site for patients, http://www.cardiosmart.org/, ACC will feature WebMD's award-winning news and videos. This consumer initiative is designed to educate and encourage consumers and patients to actively participate in heart health, disease prevention and treatment and to strengthen the patient-doctor relationship and improve the dialogue around cardiac care.
"The ACC has long been known for providing the latest clinical information to cardiovascular professionals. As we broaden our reach to provide of-the- minute cardiovascular information to patients as well, we are delighted to be working with WebMD, which has a strong presence and hard-earned reputation in this arena," said Jack Lewin, M.D., CEO of ACC. "For professionals, we are very excited to be working with Medscape to deliver the latest educational tools to our physicians, those in other specialties and their patients." "Given WebMD's commitment to providing consumers and physicians with the information and tools needed to better manage their care, we are proud to be working with the ACC on this unprecedented partnership," said Wayne Gattinella, Chief Executive Officer, WebMD. "This important initiative will deliver the most authoritative, actionable heart information to consumers, physicians and healthcare professionals." A multidisciplinary Steering Committee, comprised of the country's leading experts in cardiology and primary care, will guide editorial content for the initiative. The Steering Committee will be chaired by Christopher Cannon, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
"Cardiosource continues to strive to provide the most up-to-date clinical information to practicing cardiologists," said Christopher Cannon, M.D., F.A.C.C., editor in chief of Cardiosource. "Partnering with WebMD gives us an exciting opportunity to take this same style of information sharing to the patient level through their highly-respected, well-established portals, as well as our new patient site, CardioSmart." The information for clinicians will be available at http://www.medscape.com/acc and at http://www.cardiosource.com/, ACC's clinical website; the clinician-directed patient education materials will be available at Medscape's Patient Education Center. The information for consumers will be available at http://www.webmd.com/ and at CardioSmart, http://www.cardiosmart.org/, ACC's new site on cardiovascular disease, prevention, and management for health care professionals to use with their patients.
About the American College of Cardiology The American College of Cardiology is leading the way to optimal cardiovascular care and disease prevention. The College is a 34,000-member nonprofit medical society and bestows the credential Fellow of the American College of Cardiology upon physicians who meet its stringent qualifications. The College is a leader in the formulation of health policy, standards and guidelines, and is a staunch supporter of cardiovascular research. The ACC provides professional education and operates national registries for the measurement and improvement of quality care. For more information, visit http://www.acc.org/.
About WebMD WebMD Health Corp. (NASDAQ:WBMD) is a leading provider of health information services to consumers, physicians, healthcare professionals, employers and health plans through our public and private online portals and health-focused publications. WebMD Health Corp. is a subsidiary of HLTH Corporation (NASDAQ:HLTH).
The WebMD Health Network includes its leading owned and operated sites WebMD Health, Medscape, MedicineNet, eMedicine, eMedicine Health, RxList and theheart.org. DATASOURCE: WebMD and The American College of Cardiology CONTACT: Amy Murphy, American College of Cardiology, +1-240-328-4549, ; Jennifer Newman, WebMD, +1-212-624-3912, Web site: http://www.webmd.com/ http://www.acc.org/ http://www.theheart.org/ http://www.cardiosmart.org/ http://www.medscape.com/acc http://www.cardiosource.com/
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