Prior to the current international financial crisis, the medical profession was already facing ostensibly increasingly insurmountable challenges. The cost of care has been increasing faster than the economy, the population is aging and all projections predict the financial nonviability of the Medicare program (the only discussion centers around when, not if). Americans spend twice as many dollars on healthcare as the next ranked country, yet the health of the American people is ranked one of the lowest of the Western nations. Increasing numbers of uninsured enter the healthcare market with end-stage diseases for which appropriate care has been deferred for many years. And now, with personal finances increasingly threatened, people are increasingly reluctant to visit doctors, fill prescriptions or undergo elective operations. Hospitals and medical systems are increasingly cash poor, and alternative sources of funding from charitable and government sources are drying up.

The Florida Heart Research Institute, with its dual mission of pioneering scientific research and public education/prevention faces these challenges with a renewed sense of purpose and commitment. In reality, one of the most compelling findings of our research is that cardiovascular disease, the leading killer of men and women in this country and in the world, is, to a large extent, a preventable disease. Perhaps at no time in history is the value of this information so dramatically compelling. The simple reality is that we can no longer afford this illness. One of the multiple reasons that the United States spends more on health care is that we have a sicker population. Obesity is rampant amongst adults and increasing amongst our youth at an alarming rate. Diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure are on the rise, and we may simply no longer have the funds to support a medical system trying desperately to rescue its patients from the furnace of a lifestyle which is incompatible with their health. It is for this reason that FHRI has expanded its screening and educational efforts in the community, in the workplace and in the schools.

However, it is essential, in difficult times such as these, that we not lose sight of the fact that it is our research efforts which form the core of our future strategy. As a wise CEO once quipped, “A company without a bottom line has no present; a company with only a bottom line has no future.” With all the inevitable and necessary cutbacks which we will certainly face in the upcoming months and years, it is vital that we not abandon our research agenda. Perhaps we will need to be more focused and efficient in our efforts—more collaboration to pool critical resources, more focus on prevention rather than end-stage therapy, more investigation of broadly applicable strategies. Collaboration, prevention and novel therapeutics characterize the FHRI approach to the advancement of cardiovascular research.

It is only through a creative and energetic approach to the severe challenges of our current situation that we can reasonably hope to emerge that much wiser, stronger, and healthier.