Help educate your local healthcare provider about hcm with the HCM Academy
Founded in 2020, HCM Academy is a digital independent medical education program, created with expert faculty that targets developing measurable improvement in clinician understanding and confidence around HCM diagnosis and management.
Developed by experts and offering education for primary and secondary care, the curriculum aims to
provide education and awareness on:
- Diagnosis and treatment of HCM
- The impact of HCM on atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias
- Lifestyle factors including exercise and pregnancy
- The prevalence and identification of apical HCM
A series of live and on-demand expert-led CME primary and secondary care webinars will address each topic in turn.
In parallel to the webinar series, there are paired online CME case studies designed for the secondary care audience that provide more practical insight into key HCM topics. These can be accessed anytime, anywhere via the HCM Academy website.
Register here for information and free CME digital webinars and online resources.
Check out The HCM Academy for more learning tools.
HCM Academy is supported by educational grant funding from Bristol Myers Squibb, Cytokinetics, Sanofi, and Tenaya Therapeutics. PCM Scientific is the medical education company acting as scientific secretariat and organizer for this program. All content is created by the faculty and no funder has had input into any content. All activity is run independently of the funders.
The HCM Academy is for medical providers only. If you are an HCM patient continue to review the page and learn about the opportunity to refer your providers below.
Why should I refer my providers to the academy?
While 1 in 250 seems like good odds for winning the lottery, in most community-based medical practices the 1 in 250 means having HCM makes you somewhat of a rarity. Family and community doctors and general cardiologists may not encounter sufficient HCM cases to keep up with changing surgical and medicinal treatment options.
HCM symptoms are non-specific and overlap with more common cardiac diseases, which can delay diagnosis. Patients may suffer without a correct diagnosis and may not be appropriately referred to specialty care such as a Center of Excellence program. The academy will allow providers to learn and keep up to date with advances. They will be provided tools to support shared decision-making as is indicated as best practice in the 2020 ACC/AHA Guidelines in helping HCM patients.
How can I help? Refer your providers to learn more and reduce diagnosis delay.
We don't all look the same and come in all ages and genders. In the past education has had a good representation of young athletes experiencing a sudden cardiac arrest, or older men and their long-term outcomes with managed care. Today, there is a particular need to improve HCM diagnosis among elderly patients and women. Many family and community doctors, and general cardiologists may regard HCM as a disease of young people. In one study, however, 25% of HCM patients were older than 75 years.
HCM prevalence is similar in males and females. Women, however, are often diagnosed later in life than in men. There is, therefore, a need to raise awareness about HCM in these groups among family and community doctors, and general cardiologists. Referring your provider to the HCM Academy will help them learn to look for HCM in all demographics including discussing HCM with families during well-child exams.
I've got HCM and see healthcare professionals outside of a Center of Excellence.
The HCM Academy is looking for providers who touch patients' lives to learn more about HCM and determine when it is time to refer a patient to a Center of Excellence (COE).
If you have a provider that you would like to refer to learn more about the HCM Academy the link below to provide their information. You may remain anonymous or be mentioned in the referral, it is your choice.