At the Heart of Health Innovation

For more than a century, the American Heart Association has stood at the intersection of discovery and humanity - advancing cardiovascular science not as an abstract ideal, but as a daily promise to patients, clinicians and communities. At HLTH 2025, this promise was clear: people first, relationships that last and purpose at the core of every innovation.

I have the privilege of leading the American Heart Association through a moment of profound transformation happening now. New challenges are before us today – as the convergence of artificial intelligence, virtual care at home and data at people’s fingertips reshapes how we think about health care delivery and access. But beneath all that change, three imperatives remain constant: evidence-based science, trust and a relentless focus on people.

From Hype to Proof: What AI Really Needs

Everywhere we look, AI is being hailed as the future of health. In cardiovascular care, it’s already redefining diagnostics, risk prediction and decision support. But I believe the more urgent question is not what AI can do - but how we validate what it should do.

That’s why we’ve created the American Heart Association AI Assessment Lab™ Powered by Dandelion. It's the first of its kind: a science-driven framework that neutrally evaluates cardiovascular AI tools based on clinical effectiveness, ethical integrity and operational integration. We’re doing that by testing tools against real-world data like EMRs, ECGs, and echocardiograms, with even more modalities on the horizon.

Our goal here is simple: help health systems - no matter their size or geography - make sense of an increasingly crowded, often confusing, AI marketplace. This builds on our recently issued science advisory published in the Association’s flagship journal, Circulation, which introduces a pragmatic, risk-based framework for evaluating and monitoring artificial intelligence (AI) tools in cardiovascular and stroke care. 

This shows that our Assessment Lab is more than a simple technical exercise. It’s a needed step towards building trust, and it’s the way to help health systems and developers make smarter, safer decisions grounded in data.

Remote Care Is No Longer Novel. Care at Home is Necessary.

The pandemic forced remote care into the mainstream. Since then, it has expanded beyond one-off interactions, extending high-quality care into homes and closing gaps by providing healthcare access for those challenged by schedule, transportation and other barriers. 

When patients living with complex conditions like heart failure or diabetes are discharged, how do we ensure they continue to receive high-quality care?  Through American Heart Association Connected Care™, Powered by Cadence, we’re meeting that challenge head-on with proactive, timely, guideline-directed care from the patient’s home. 

This remote patient monitoring model delivers consistent daily support to patients using simple, FDA-cleared devices. That data is shared with the Cadence clinical care team who are available 24/7 to help catch symptoms early, before they escalate. 

Beyond Expansion: Telehealth as a Lifeline

If remote care is built on continuous, proactive monitoring and support — keeping patients connected to their care teams from home every day, telehealth, by contrast, is episodic. 

It’s the virtual visit, the video consultation or the phone call that lets a patient connect with a specialist in a different geography without leaving home. 

While telehealth expands access and convenience, remote care provides the ongoing safety net. Together, they form the foundation of a more connected, responsive health system

As telehealth matures, the question shifts: not just can people connect, but are those connections delivering the same quality, evidence-based care as in-person visits?

The Heart Association’s Center for Telehealth is focused on making virtual care dependable and effective. We’re working to ensure patients don’t just have access to digital visits, but that those visits deliver the same reliable, lifesaving care they’d get in person. It’s about reach, trust and quality — no matter where a patient lives or how they connect.

Training the People Who Power the System

Digital transformation isn’t just about technology, data or devices. It’s about people: the nurses, physicians and care teams at the center of it all.  Each member needs tools they can rely on and training that keeps pace with the technologies they are expected to use.

That’s why we’re expanding programs like RQI (Resuscitation Quality Improvement), which modernizes professional CPR training using adaptive, real-time data. We are also investing in our core quality improvement efforts with a new pilot program to provide health systems with transparent, actionable data on cost-effectiveness and clinical value. Stay tuned for more!