Oklahoma City Indian Clinic is one of nine innovative heart healthy organizations from across the country to receive a grant from AstraZeneca Healthcare Foundation
OKLAHOMA CITY – Oklahoma City Indian Clinic (OKCIC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit clinic providing health and wellness services to American Indians in central Oklahoma, was recognized with a grant from the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM Next Generation program. This grant will fund Healthy Hearts on the Go: Linking Cardiovascular Disease to Diabetes Management for American Indians.
OKCIC’s Healthy Hearts on the Go is one of nine programs to receive funding through this first year of the Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM Next Generation program. The program, which builds on the Foundation’s Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM program and 10 years of lessons learned to address a leading cause of death in the nation, launched on World Heart Day to elevate awareness of cardiovascular disease and ways to address it at the community level.
“Nothing is more important to our clinic than the health of our patients and community,” said Robyn Sunday-Allen, CEO of Oklahoma City Indian Clinic. “This funding will help us to increase cardiovascular disease awareness, prevent and better manage cardiovascular disease, and remove barriers to care, so that we can help American Indian people, who have a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease than their white counterparts .”
The grant from the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation will help OKCIC to increase community engagement through innovative, youth-led cardiovascular disease awareness strategies and improve the quality of cardiovascular disease care delivery via community-based and telehealth interventions to increase awareness of cardiovascular disease risk factors; improve lifestyle behaviors such as nutrition and physical activity; increase access to cardiovascular disease interventions through novel approaches; and improve clinical cardiovascular disease measures in the central Oklahoma American Indian community.
“Through CCH Next Generation, we’re expanding the reach of our program to new communities to continue working to improve heart health across the country,” said James W. Blasetto, MD, MPH, FACC, chairman of the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation. “We’re proud to be supporting Oklahoma City Indian Clinic and look forward to seeing how they help meet their community’s unmet cardiovascular needs.”
For more information about Healthy Hearts on the Go, visit www.okcic.com or call (405) 948-4900.
About Oklahoma City Indian Clinic
Oklahoma City Indian Clinic was established in 1974 to provide excellent health care and wellness services to American Indians in central Oklahoma. The clinic staff cares for more than 20,000 patients from over 200 federally recognized tribes every year. American Indians can receive a range of services, including medical, diabetes and diabetes prevention, dental, pediatrics, prenatal, pharmacy, optometry, physical fitness, nutrition, family programs and behavioral health services. For more information, please call (405) 948-4900 or visit www.okcic.com.
About AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation
Established in 1993, the AstraZeneca HealthCare Foundation is a Delaware not-for-profit corporation and a 501(c)(3) entity, separate from AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, organized for charitable purposes including to promote public awareness and education of healthcare issues and support nonprofit organizations consistent with its charitable purpose. Connections for Cardiovascular HealthSM was launched in 2010 and has received $35 million in charitable contributions from AstraZeneca to date. The program has awarded over $24.8 million in grants to 58 organizations nationwide. More than 1.7 million people have been reached by the program and over 65,000 people have had their heart health progress tracked through a variety of Grant Awardees’ programs. For more information and the latest updates, follow the Foundation on Facebook (@AstraZenecaHealthCareFoundation), Twitter (@ConnectCVHealth) and YouTube (ConnectionsCVHealth).