The HEART RESERVE framework
FLOW, BEAT, PUMP and POWER. Four questions to help you understand your heart and what to ask next.
Build my Heart StoryFour questions about your heart
These parts of heart health work together. Understanding which part a test checks helps you ask a more useful question.
Blood flow, arteries, and plaque
FLOW connects blood pressure and cholesterol with plaque and blood flow. Plaque is a buildup in artery walls. A blood test can help you understand your risk, but it cannot show whether plaque is already there or whether blood is reaching your heart muscle.
Heart rhythm and rate
BEAT asks what your heart is doing when you feel a flutter, pounding, or a skipped beat. An ECG records a short stretch of its electrical activity. If symptoms come and go, a longer recording may help your clinician connect the feeling with the rhythm.
Heart structure and function
PUMP is about how your heart is built and how it works. A heart ultrasound, called an echocardiogram or echo, can show its size, valves, and how it pumps and fills at rest. It cannot answer every question about plaque, rhythm, or what you can do during exercise.
Strength, stamina, and recovery
POWER brings the conversation back to stairs, walking, carrying, and recovery. Your heart, lungs, muscles, and other parts of your body work together during activity. A change in what you can comfortably do is useful information to bring into care.
Why the map matters
An ECG or EKG records your heart’s electrical signals for a short time. It can show your rhythm during that recording. It cannot answer every question about your arteries, how your heart pumps, or what you can do during exercise.
A heart ultrasound, called an echocardiogram or echo, can show the heart’s size, valves, and how it pumps and fills at rest. It cannot answer every question about blood flow, rhythm, or exercise.
If stairs feel harder than usual, tell your clinician—especially if the change is new, keeps happening, gets worse, or comes with other symptoms. The change alone cannot tell you the cause.
The five-step method
Bring together your history, older and newer results, symptoms, tests, and changes in what your body can do.
Decide with your care team which question to work on first.
Agree on treatment or daily habits that fit your health and your goal.
Name the result, trend, symptom change, or familiar task that would show whether the plan helped.
Come back when you planned to—or sooner if your symptoms, health, or what you can do changes.
Start with what you know
Your Heart Story helps you organize your history, results and questions for your next visit. It cannot tell you whether you have heart disease or how likely you are to develop it.