Case Study: Hearts Beat Back achieves improved blood pressure and cholesterol at the population level with Health Catalyst

Developing a Multilevel Approach to Improving Population Health

Hearts Beat Back is a 10-year, community-based prevention project in New Ulm, Minnesota, focused on reducing heart attacks and modifiable cardiovascular risk factors across the population. Facing challenges that included incomplete clinical data, undetected risk factors, and the need to coordinate multilevel interventions across healthcare, worksites, and the community, Hearts Beat Back partnered with Health Catalyst and used the Health Catalyst® Analytics Platform built on the Late-Binding™ Data Warehouse architecture to harness EHR, screening, and community data for population health management.

Health Catalyst integrated screening results with the EDW and EHR, enabled risk mapping and proactive outreach to high-risk residents, and supported evaluation of multilevel interventions (coaching, built-environment changes, food and activity initiatives). Using Health Catalyst analytics, Hearts Beat Back documented measurable five‑year improvements: blood pressure control rose from 79% to 86% and LDL control from 68% to 72%, physical activity increased (64% to 72% meeting guidelines), smoking declined (8% to 6%), and coached participants tripled fruit/vegetable intake—demonstrating the platform’s role in targeting care and tracking population health impact.

Hearts Beat Back

Gretchen Benson

Manager of Healthcare Systems Integration