US tract-level analysis maps readiness for digital cardiovascular care

Researchers linked national data on cardiometabolic disease burden, cardiology workforce and digital readiness across 82,999 US census tracts. They focused on high-burden tracts in counties with no cardiologist or declining per-capita cardiologist supply, classifying communities according to their readiness to use digital health services.

Of these high-burden tracts, 4,765 (18.0%), representing 19.9 million residents, had higher readiness and were classified as deployment-priority areas. The other 21,752 tracts (82.0%), representing 74.1 million residents, had lower readiness and were classified as investment-priority areas. Barriers varied, including digital adoption and infrastructure, and investment-priority tracts occurred across urban and rural settings. Neighboring tracts within the same metropolitan area often received different classifications.

Results were broadly consistent across nine additional analyses using alternative readiness and workforce measures and classification thresholds. The findings offer a framework for distinguishing areas that may be positioned to deploy digital cardiovascular care from those where readiness-building may be needed first. The analysis maps community-level conditions; it does not test whether digital care improves cardiovascular outcomes or establish the effectiveness of particular implementation strategies.