Especially in matters of the heart, own your health!

As healthcare marketing professionals, when we hear the phrase “heart disease,” we may think “Oh, February is Heart Month.”

But since heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States for men and women, understanding how to help prevent this disease from affecting us should be top of mind every month of the year.

I have interviewed many patients who fully adopted the theme Own it! by changing their lifestyles to have a better shot at living a longer and healthier life.

Taos, New Mexico resident Kendra Bealor took the time to recognize the symptoms of a heart attack. Both sides of her family have a history of the disease, so when she experienced the symptoms one Christmas morning, she was able to get appropriate care at the Heart Hospital of New Mexico.

When Eric Eborn’s wife, a credentialing specialist at Portneuf Medical Center, told him about the special price on the cardiac calcium risk screening program, he signed up and took the tests. The above-normal results moved him to start taking a daily statin, focus on heart-healthy meals, and increase his exercise.

It was Mark Nichols’ care and concern for his wife’s health, given her family history of heart attacks, that led him to join her for a cardiac CT angiogram scan at Oklahoma Heart Institute. Her results were fine but his showed high levels of calcium throughout his entire system, which led to successful open-heart surgery.

When Rhonda Keller, the practice administrator for nine different rural health clinics in east Texas, started having symptoms of extreme fatigue, she thought it was just stress related to work and struggles in her personal life. After a cardiac catheterization showed many arterial blockages, she underwent a quadruple bypass surgery at UT Health East Texas.

So, in these matters of the heart, embrace this Ardent Way theme and Own it! in both your work and especially in your daily health activities.