Three High-profile Healthcare Providers Join Forces
with Supermarket Chains and Food Brands In
Award-winning Campaign to Fight Heart Disease

Do you have a high-risk waistline? Three healthcare providers in the Philadelphia area and Atlanta are going to address that question - and offer diet and exercise tips for people who do - with an intensive, multi-media campaign called HeadsUp on Heart Disease¨ this coming February, American Heart Month. They're joined in the initiative by seven top supermarket chains and heart friendly brands that have provided advertising support. All three providers are part of Catholic Health East (CHE), one of the nation's largest Catholic healthcare systems. Combined they perform nearly 150,000 cardiac procedures annually - from diagnostics to catheterizations, the treatment of irregular heartbeats and open-heart surgery.

St. Mary Medical Center in Langhorne, Pennsylvania, Lourdes Health System (The New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes) in southern New Jersey and Saint Joseph's Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia have teamed up to raise awareness of obesity as an independent risk factor for heart disease - the number one killer in America - among millions of residents of the Philadelphia and Atlanta metropolitan areas.

HeadsUp on Heart Disease features a free, informative booklet that includes heart healthy recipes, tips on combining diet and exercise to manage weight, high-value coupons from sponsoring brands and a $5.00 instant savings offer from MasterCard¨. In the Philadelphia area, there will also be a two-part, heart healthy, TV cooking series, featuring two cardiologists and a heart surgeon from St. Mary and three cardiologists from Lourdes Health System.

A total of 1,000,000 copies of the free booklet will be distributed by six participating supermarket chains in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, as well as by St. Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center in Camden, New Jersey and Lourdes Medical Center of Burlington County in Willingboro, New Jersey and participating physicians. Supermarket chain partners in the Philadelphia area are Acme¨, Clemens¨ Markets, Genuardi's¨ Markets, McCaffrey's¨ Supermarkets, Pathmark¨ Stores, Inc. and Super Fresh¨. Another 500,000 booklets will be distributed in Atlanta by Kroger¨, Saint Joseph's and their participating physicians.

In Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, St. Mary and Lourdes will take the "high-risk waistline" message to television with the two-part TV cooking series, "Paul Dillon Cooks with the Cardiologists," to air on CN8, The Comcast Network. Part One, to air Friday, February 11, 2005, 6:00 PM/ET, pairs TV chef Dillon with St. Mary cardiologists Drs. Charles Paraboschi and Rakesh Shah and heart surgeon, Dr. Charles Raudat, preparing four heart healthy, waistline friendly recipes. Part 2 airs Friday, February 18, 6:00 PM/EST with more recipes and tips from Lourdes cardiologists Drs. John Hamaty, Steven Klier and Donald Orth. CN8's programming can be seen on the CN8 Live link, on www.cn8.tv. All participating physicians cook as a hobby.

MasterCard¨, Filippo Berio¨ Olive Oil, Fleischmann's¨ Yeast and Mrs. Dash¨ Salt Free Seasoning Blends are supporting the campaign with ads, coupons and TV commercials in Philadelphia and Atlanta. Alpine Lace¨ and LAND O LAKES Naturally Slender¨ Deli Cheese, Blue Diamond¨ Almonds, Carolina¨ Rice and Ecotrin¨ Aspirin, round out the Philadelphia ad, coupon and commercial support. Absopure¨ Water and Mahatma¨ Rice are supporting the program with ads and coupons in Atlanta.

St. Mary, recently named one of the Top 100 Hospitals in America by Solucient, a leading provider of healthcare information, for the second consecutive year, has one of the fastest growing cardiac services programs in southeastern Pennsylvania. The New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes is, for the fourth consecutive year, the largest provider of inpatient cardiac services in the Philadelphia/southern New Jersey area. Saint Joseph's Hospital is acknowledged by HealthGrades, the Nation's leading healthcare watchdog group, to have the "best overall" cardiac program in Georgia and among the top ten percent in the nation. In addition, in 2004, Saint Joseph's was named by Solucient as one of the Top 100 Heart Hospitals in America for the fifth time.

In citing the reason for the campaign's focus on overweight and obesity, Dr. Jan R. Weber, Chief of the Division of Cardiology at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center and Medical Director of The New Jersey Heart Institute at Lourdes had this to say: "People need to realize that a high-risk waistline - greater than 35 inches for a woman and greater than 40 inches for a man, according to the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute - puts you at greater risk for heart disease."

"Obesity is a national epidemic, and we want to make it a local concern," said Dr. Richard T. Leshner, Chief of the Cardiology Section at St. Mary. "For example, here in Bucks County 22.5 percent of all people are obese," he added.

Besides pointing out the problem and how people can learn if their weight puts them at risk, the HeadsUp on Heart Disease booklets and TV shows emphasize the need for a combination of healthy eating and exercise to manage weight.

"As one of the Top 100 Hospitals in the nation, we view it as part of our mission to promote healthy communities and help prevent the diseases we diagnose and treat. HeadsUp on Heart Disease enables us to touch a lot of lives with preventive information in a simple, engaging way," said Gregory T. Wozniak, President and CEO of St. Mary Medical Center.

"Lourdes is the largest provider of cardiac services in our region. Awakening community awareness of obesity and its impact on the heart is part of who we are and what we do," explained Alexander Hatala, President and CEO of Lourdes Health System. "This is truly a unique effort made possible with the support of our supermarket and brand partners," Hatala added.

"The people of Atlanta rely on us for cardiac care. We undertook this program for them, and we thank our supermarket partner and the brands that are supporting this campaign", added Bonnie Phipps, CEO and President of Saint Joseph's Health System, of which Saint Joseph's Hospital is a part.

HeadsUp on Heart Disease, which was embraced first by St. Mary in 2003, won three healthcare communications awards in 2004, including a Gold in the 21st Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards, sponsored by the trade publication, Healthcare Marketing Report. Lourdes Health System joined St. Mary in the program for 2004. This year will mark the first time Saint Joseph's Hospital will participate.

The program was developed for St. Mary Medical Center, the Lourdes Health System and Saint Joseph's by Melk Marketing Services, Inc. and SAI Marketing, Inc. with the assistance of Multi-Media Productions, Inc. For more information, see the Developed By... document (pdf, 623kb) in the Press section.