The American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes has announced a new Patient or Caregiver Viewpoint section in the journal. Viewpoints will be authored by patients or their caregivers and will discuss the patient’s experience of heart disease, stroke, or other cardiovascular disease and their interactions with the healthcare system.

As Harlan Krumholz and I explain in an Editor’s Note, the editors of the journal hope that Viewpoints “will contain insights from the patient’s perspective along with suggestions on how to improve clinical care and healthcare delivery.”

The first Viewpoint, by a heart disease patient, discusses how he experienced interactions with his physicians over whether he should start a blood pressure medication and his thoughts on how physicians and patients could work together in a manner consistent with the patient’s values and goals.

Viewpoints will contain a minimum of medical jargon and will be freely accessible to the public. The journal hopes to make these articles a regular feature. If you are a patient living with or at risk of cardiovascular disease, or a friend or family member of such a patient, please consider submitting a Viewpoint. Instructions to authors are posted on the journal’s website.