A Five-Minute Test Saved His Life
Five minutes. That’s about how long it took Lee Ferguson to fill out Scott & White
Healthcare’s online HeartAware risk assessment. Twenty years. That’s about how
long he may have added to his life because he followed up on the results.
r. Ferguson, a 66-year-old
resident of Harker Heights,
about 25 miles west of Temple,
suspected he might have a heart problem.
First there was jaw pain when he rode his
mountain bike, then fatigue and
breathlessness when he walked any
distance or played golf with his buddies.
When he saw a television commercial for
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THE CATALYST Winter 09
HeartAware, Mr. Ferguson wrote down
the Web address (www.sw.org) and
made a life-altering decision to take the
online risk assessment.
The HeartAware program, available in
Central Texas only through Scott & White
Healthcare, begins with the risk
assessment, which asks some simple
questions and offers pertinent information
about heart disease. For example, most
people don’t realize that 45 percent of
heart attacks occur in people under age 65,
or that women account for more than half
of deaths from heart disease.
“The HeartAware assessment is fast,
confidential and can change a person’s life
quickly,” says Charles Reiter, MD, a
cardiothoracic surgeon at Scott & White