Digital readiness for cardiovascular care in high-burden US communities with cardiology workforce constraints
Authors' conclusion
These findings provide a national framework for distinguishing communities where digital cardiovascular care may be deployed from those where infrastructure and adoption support may first be needed to enable equitable implementation.
Study context
- Population
- US census tracts with high cardiometabolic disease burden in counties with no cardiologist or declining per-capita cardiologist supply
- Participants
- 82,999 US census tracts
- Comparison
- Deployment-priority tracts vs investment-priority tracts
- Deployment-priority tractsn = 4,765
- Investment-priority tractsn = 21,752
- Outcome
- Classification of high-burden tracts in counties with no cardiologist or declining per-capita cardiologist supply
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
| Group | Value | Residents |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment-priority tracts | 18.0% | 19.9 million |
| Investment-priority tracts | 82.0% | 74.1 million |
Value
Deployment-priority tracts18.0%
Investment-priority tracts82.0%
Residents
Deployment-priority tracts19.9 million
Investment-priority tracts74.1 million
Further findings
Distribution and barriers of investment-priority tracts
- Investment-priority tracts were spread across the urban-rural continuum and faced different barriers (adoption versus infrastructure)
Geographic variation in classification
- Contrasting classifications frequently occurred among neighboring census tracts within the same metropolitan area
Sensitivity analyses
- Findings were broadly consistent across nine additional analyses with varying measures of readiness, workforce access, and classification thresholds
Original publication
Digital readiness for cardiovascular care in high-burden US communities with cardiology workforce constraints. Nat Med. Published 5 November 2026. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →