Amy Sarma, MD, on increasing access to female cardiovascular care

At the American College of Cardiology 75th Annual Scientific Session & Expo, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, from March 28-30, 2026, experts gathered to discuss the evolving landscape of cardiology, including how it impacts sex-specific cardiovascular risk.

In this interview, Amy Sarma, MD, Cardiologist, Cathy E. Minehan Endowed Chair in Cardiology; Director, Women's Heart Health Program, Massachusetts General Hospital; Co-Director, Cardiovascular Disease and Pregnancy Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, sat down to discuss how a patient's connection to the healthcare system could diminish just as they enter a period of high hemodynamic volatility.

Sarma explains why the medical community could transition away from episodic, office-based visits toward multimodality and digital health strategies to ensure that the 1-year postpartum window does not become a period of overlooked cardiovascular risk.

Contemporary OB/GYN:

What can be done to increase access to female cardiovascular care, especially during significant changes such as postpartum or menopause?

Amy Sarma, MD:

I think we need to think about being innovative in the way that we deliver care right now, particularly if we take, for example, the postpartum period. This is a period of time where we know there are dynamic changes in the hemodynamics of patients. This occurs even on a daily basis, particularly within the first 3 postpartum weeks, but the cardiovascular risk extends up to 1 year postpartum.

WATCH MORE: Amy Sarma, MD, talks cardiovascular disease and menopause associations at ACC 2026

While we routinely assess and reassess women during their pregnancy, their connection to care really falls off in the postpartum period. They remain at higher risk but do not have that same access to care; they also have increasing barriers to care, particularly with new childcare responsibilities during that period. It really is an important gap that we need to be filling in terms of care delivery, and this is where I think we need to better understand how to harness and optimize digital health strategies.

We need to be thinking about this in a way that doesn't necessarily widen disparities and increase care gaps, but really thinking about meaningful ways and potentially multimodal strategies for optimizing and increasing access to care, particularly among patients who are at the highest risk for adverse outcomes in this postpartum period. I think we need to be much more innovative in thinking about how we deliver care, and we need to think outside of these episodic, office-based visits as a strategy.