Top Things to Know: Comprehensive Centers of Excellence for Women's Cardiovascular Care

Updated: October 26, 2026

Prepared by Radhika Rajgopal Singh, PhD, FAHA; Sr Vice President, Science and Medicine

  1. Current health care delivery for women is fragmented across clinical specialties and was not designed around the life course. Women’s health care is uniquely fragmented across multiple clinical specialties, including pediatrics, adolescent medicine, primary care, obstetrics, gynecology, maternal-fetal medicine, endocrinology, cardiology, hematology and neurology. The Female Life Stages framework provides shared, stage-specific guidance endorsed by four leading professional societies (AHA, AAP, ACOG, SMFM).
  2. The establishment of the first federally designated Women’s Cardiovascular Centers in the 1990s provided an important foundation for specialized care. Dedicated programs for women’s cardiovascular care have evolved to address the persistent gaps in awareness, diagnosis, and treatment.
  3. As part of the Compendium on Women’s Health, this Science Advisory brings together four leading societies (AHA, AAP, ACOG, and SMFM) to design an interdisciplinary female-specific care model. This Science Advisory complements the Presidential Advisory and the Scientific Statement in the Compendium on Women’s Health by translating the Female Life Stage framework across pillars of clinical care, education, research, and community partnership.
  4. The Advisory reports the results of a national landscape analysis of Women’s Cardiovascular Centers, which demonstrates substantial variability among existing Women’s Cardiovascular Centers. Programs differ in their clinical services, interdisciplinary team members, referral pathways, educational activities, research infrastructure, and community engagement. These data highlight both important strengths and opportunities to expand Women’s Cardiovascular Care.
  5. The Advisory proposes the development and designation of dedicated Comprehensive Centers of Excellence (CCoE) in Women’s Cardiovascular Care - interdisciplinary care models built on four foundational pillars. CCoE for Women’s Cardiovascular Care should integrate interdisciplinary clinical care, education, research, and community partnerships within a unified and accountable structure.
  6. The clinical care pillar places the Female Life Stage framework at the center of coordinated, interdisciplinary team-based care. CCoEs should recognize the interconnectedness of hormonal, psychosocial, and cardiovascular health across Female Life Stages. Consistent with recent ACC/AHA guidelines, these care models should be implemented using health system principles, quality improvement methods, and patient-reported outcomes. Scalable approaches, including AI-enabled workflow support and virtual care strategies, can help extend high-quality care to underserved and rural populations.
  7. The education pillar calls for longitudinal training that prepares all clinicians to deliver Female Life Stage-based cardiovascular care. The second foundational pillar on education and training suggests lifelong learning from medical school through continuing professional education to build a well-trained workforce to deliver Female Life Stage-based cardiovascular care. Curricula should combine didactic and experiential learning, be grounded in ACGME core competencies, and equip all clinicians to recognize the interplay of hormonal, psychosocial, and cardiovascular health, including the evaluation and management of female-specific and female-predominant cardiovascular conditions. Integrating these concepts into case-based learning, certification programs, and competency assessments is essential for sustainable workforce development and culture change.
  8. The research pillar calls for dedicated infrastructure to strengthen the evidence base for cardiovascular health in women. A focused agenda on expanding the evidence base for women's cardiovascular health through dedicated funding, robust research infrastructure, and increased representation of women in clinical studies is critical for CCoEs. Establishing a robust national women's cardiovascular research network can support longitudinal, interventional, and implementation research, harmonize outcomes data, and leverage registries (e.g., Research Goes Red), remote monitoring, and global collaborations. Success will require addressing structural barriers to trial participation through women-centered, culturally responsive recruitment and study designs that improve enrollment, retention, and equity.
  9. The community partnership pillar emphasizes trusted, bidirectional relationships that extend beyond the health system. The fourth pillar on community engagement emphasizes trusted, bidirectional partnerships with community members, leaders, health workers, and organizations to address the social, behavioral, and structural drivers of women's cardiovascular health. These partnerships should be grounded in shared decision-making, accountability, and mutual value, while extending research and program delivery through community-based participatory approaches.
  10. CCoEs can serve as exemplars for surrounding health systems to improve awareness, prevention, and treatment of CVD across the Female Life Stages. A national network of Comprehensive Centers of Excellence should establish shared standards, common data elements, referral pathways, and monitor for improvement within and across health systems. Together with the accompanying Presidential Advisory and Scientific Statement, this Advisory represents a coordinated multi-society commitment to transform how cardiovascular healthcare is delivered, taught, researched, and understood.
View the summary for the Compendium on Women's Health
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Citation

The American Heart Association requests that this document be cited as follows: Khan SS, Grobman WA, Angell S, Brubaker L, Cameron NA, de Ferranti S, El Khoudary SR, Ferranti EP, Hameed AB, Johnson HM, Kennedy S, Kim ESH, Hannon TS, Maradik ME, Martin KA, Miller EC, Singh RR, Rosen SE, Reed SD, Tabak RG, Tandon SD, Thurston RC, Weedn AE, Verma N, Perak AM; on behalf of the American Heart Association; American Academy of Pediatrics; American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Consensus guidance for the female-specific prevention and management of cardiovascular disease: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation. Published online October 26, 2026. doi: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001482

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