Programming

We kicked off a nationwide movement to transform Canadian cardiovascular care with the first stop of the Biome CVD Summit September 14th in Edmonton. Today from Toronto, we continue to drive the discussion forward, with sessions that envision strategic, population and system-level approaches to improving CVD health.

Taking a transformational approach to CVD healthcare means investing in effective, society-level prevention efforts. We need to build the right conditions to proactively manage cardiovascular risk factors across all patient populations. This means adopting effective and equitable healthcare policies, unlikely models of collaboration, and leading-edge technologies to help keep Canadians well.

Lifestyle factors are crucial to CVD health, yet as we all know from our own lives, implementing behaviour change can be challenging. Fortunately, behavioural science offers us the evidence-based framework we need to understand why people do what they do – the critical first step towards initiating healthy lifestyle change. Drawing on behaviour change science empoweres us to develop more successful strategies for nudging people to live heathier, heart-friendly, lives.

Let’s retire old ways of thinking about what it means to age. How might we reimagine the journey of aging in a way that builds better care for older CVD patients? By optimizing the end-to-end care experience for older Canadians, from diagnosis through to ongoing disease management, we can ensure old age won’t just mean living long but living well.

Recap the highlights and bold solutions produced by the day’s engaging, in-depth conversations and begin to explore the key takeaways that emerged during the second stop on the Summit’s nationwide tour. Together, we’ve laid the foundation for transformational change in Canadian CVD care through the Summit’s first two stops in Edmonton and Toronto. We convene next in Montreal to continue the conversation and build a lasting blueprint for change.