This year's Global Week of Action focused on "Ensuring Healthy Lives for All." ACC Past President John Gordon Harold, MD, MACC, kicked off the week by participating in an interactive panel discussion at the NCD Café during the ESC Congress 2019 in Paris.

Harold focused on the role health care professionals play in strengthening health systems and combating NCDs in their communities across the continuum of care, and highlighted ACC's ongoing efforts to engage stakeholders to fight NCDs. Among the activities: partnering with ACC's 42 International Chapters to bring regionalized education, train-the-trainer programs, and mentoring and leadership training directly to cardiovascular clinicians all around the world.

Additionally, ACC's new Global Heart Attack Treatment Initiative (GHATI) is dedicated to collaborating, collecting and sharing data, and utilizing quality improvement (QI) tools to better acute myocardial infarction (AMI) care.

"In 2011 the United Nations set a goal to reduce the rate of premature deaths by NCDs by 2030. With this goal only 10 years away, there is an urgent need to reach clinicians where they live and practice throughout the world," Harold says.

"The ACC has a long legacy of international collaboration and engagement with the goal of improving the quality of cardiovascular care worldwide. Only by working together will we be able to achieve not only ACC's missions to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health, but the broader goal of reducing deaths from heart disease and other prevalent NCDs."

On a broad scale, the Global Week of Action reached more than 2.4 million on social media and involved more than 88 countries and 223 cities. Additionally, several new studies presented at ESC Congress 2019 highlighted opportunities to improve cardiovascular care and reduced NCDs, particularly in low- to middle-income countries.

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Inequities in compensation and opportunity are often cited as causes of burnout, a common problem among physicians that can lead to problems with the quality of patient care. The College has recently recognized a need to develop a more strongly inclusive culture to address the lack of diversity among cardiologists, and lack of equal compensation has also been noted as contributing to the low number of female medical graduates pursuing careers in cardiology. Increasing the number of underrepresented minority health professionals in the field is an important step in improving the cultural competence of the health care system.

"With this policy statement, the ACC intends to provide a clear set of principles related to equity in compensation and opportunity in the professional cardiovascular workplace along with the associated underlying considerations," says Pamela S. Douglas, MD, MACC, chair of the writing committee and chair of ACC's Diversity and Inclusion Task Force. "The ACC has developed 17 principles for achieving equity in compensation and opportunity, beginning with the firm declaration that the College believes that cardiologist compensation should be equitable and fair for equivalent work."

According to these ACC principles, cardiologist compensation should be objectively determined by a modeled systems approach that is prospectively developed and based on consensus principles, which in turn are fully aligned with an organization's or practice's business strategy, mission and core values. These principles may be used by organizations and practices of any size and are adaptable to a range of strategic goals.

Equity cannot be fully ensured without considering other factors that may affect compensation directly or indirectly, including career advancement; quality and quantity of clinical, administrative and research support; clinic/lab/procedure space and time; work environment; and access to resources. The document groups these factors broadly under "opportunity" and considers them prerequisites to ensuring compensation equity.

"Compensation and opportunity equity are critical components of a fair and professional work environment," Douglas adds. "No compensation plan can provide fairness unless there is also equal opportunity to maximize performance and advancement. The ACC believes that adherence to these principles will improve the performance and satisfaction of the cardiovascular workforce, enhance team-based care and ultimately benefit patient and population health."

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