Unified Women’s Healthcare Launches a New Initiative Aimed at Leveraging Routine OB/GYN Care to Identify Cardiovascular Risk Earlier and Connect More Women to Preventive Care

TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Unified Women’s Healthcare (Unified), one of the nation’s largest women’s healthcare organizations, is leading a new initiative to explore how routine OB/GYN care can play a greater role in identifying and addressing cardiovascular disease risk among women. Early support from the American Heart Association Go Red for Women Venture Fund^TM for a feasibility study by Unified’s Lucina Analytics subsidiary laid the groundwork for the initiative. Building on that foundation, Unified is leveraging Lucina’s AI-driven intelligence and embedded care management capabilities to help OB/GYN teams identify patients at elevated cardiovascular risk and connect them with care tailored to their risk level.

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death among women in the United States, yet opportunities to identify risk factors and intervene early are often missed. For many women, their OB/GYN is their most consistent point of contact within the healthcare system, creating an important opportunity to integrate cardiovascular prevention into care they already receive.

The Unified initiative seeks to bridge this gap by developing a scalable approach to cardiovascular risk assessment within women's healthcare settings, with the long-term goal of helping clinicians identify women at elevated risk earlier and connect them with appropriate preventive services and specialty care.

“Women’s healthcare providers are uniquely positioned to play a more meaningful role in cardiovascular disease prevention,” said Elizabeth Cherot, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer of Unified Women’s Healthcare. “We care for women across critical stages of their lives, from pregnancy and postpartum through menopause and beyond. This initiative is about recognizing that these encounters are opportunities not only to address immediate reproductive health needs, but also to protect long-term health.”

Building the Foundation for a New Model of Preventive Care

The Unified initiative builds on the American Heart Association PREVENT^TM cardiovascular risk assessment calculator. The calculator’s equations, which are sex-specific, estimate an individual's risk of developing cardiovascular disease using established clinical and health indicators.

The initiative will explore how this risk tool can be incorporated into routine OB/GYN care, while considering the unique cardiovascular risk factors and life-stage transitions that affect women, including pregnancy-related complications, polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS), and menopause.

“Creating an annual midlife visit and cultivating nontraditional screening points to reimagine cardiometabolic health were twin takeaways from our Inflection Point Summit,” noted Tracy Warren, Senior Managing Director, Go Red for Women Venture Fund, part of the American Heart Association Ventures family of funds. “Unified’s initiative is an important step forward in establishing a standard for cardiovascular screening for women at every stage of life and a priority that aligns with the focus of our fund.”

The initiative builds on Lucina’s existing maternity risk model and its capabilities in clinical data integration and predictive analytics to explore new applications in cardiovascular risk assessment. The foundational research phase is focused on assessing the availability and completeness of clinical data, identifying appropriate populations for screening, and evaluating the feasibility of cardiovascular risk assessment using existing healthcare data. This initial work will inform the design of future clinical feasibility studies evaluating how risk assessment could be integrated into routine care and translated into meaningful interventions, including blood pressure and cholesterol management, lifestyle counseling, and coordinated referrals to primary care or cardiology.

Leveraging the Reach of Women’s Healthcare

With a national network of more than 3,000 clinicians caring for millions of women annually, Unified is uniquely positioned to evaluate and scale innovative approaches to preventive care. Combined with Lucina’s predictive intelligence and embedded care management capabilities, this national reach creates an opportunity to identify women at risk earlier and connect them with targeted interventions.

Unified’s long-term vision is to establish a practical, evidence-informed model that can be integrated into existing clinical workflows without creating unnecessary burdens for patients or providers.

“Improving women’s cardiovascular health requires us to think differently about where and when prevention begins,” added Dr. Cherot. “By bringing cardiovascular risk assessment into the settings where women already receive care, we have an opportunity to reach more patients, identify risks earlier, and ultimately help prevent cardiovascular disease before it develops.”

Advancing a Shared Commitment to Women’s Health

The collaboration reflects a shared commitment to advancing women’s cardiovascular health through research, innovation, and earlier prevention.

As this initiative progresses, Unified aims to generate insights that can inform broader clinical implementation and contribute to a more integrated approach to women’s healthcare – one that recognizes the connections between reproductive health, cardiovascular health, and lifelong well-being.

About Unified Women’s Healthcare

Unified Women’s Healthcare is a leading women’s healthcare organization supporting a national network of more than 3,000 clinicians across 23 states. Through its affiliated practices and healthcare businesses, Unified is committed to advancing the quality, accessibility, and coordination of care for women at every stage of life.