How the APP Cardiology Academy Is Built
Every lesson in the Academy starts from the same question: what does the current evidence actually say, and what does an APP in cardiology need to be able to do with it?
Built on the ACC Core Curriculum — All of It
The ACC Core Curriculum for Cardiovascular Care is the framework the American College of Cardiology developed to define what a cardiovascular clinician needs to know and be able to do. It consists of 14 competency tables covering every major domain of cardiovascular practice.
Each of the 16 lessons in the APP Cardiology Academy was mapped against those competency tables before any lesson content was written. Not selected tables — all 14. Every competency domain is addressed somewhere in the curriculum, and the mapping was done explicitly, table by table.
This is the same framework that underlies the Certified Cardiovascular Knowledge Examination (NP/PA-CCKE). It is also the competency framework cardiology programs and employers use when evaluating what a new APP is expected to know. The Academy is not loosely aligned to this framework — it was built from it.
Current Clinical Practice Guidelines — Not Archived Ones
Most continuing education content is built once and republished for years. The version of the ACC/AHA heart failure guideline used to write a course in 2019 is not the same guideline governing how you manage patients today.
Every lesson in the APP Cardiology Academy is built from the current ACC/AHA clinical practice guideline for that topic. For each major management recommendation — drug selection, dosing targets, when to refer, when to intervene — the Class of Recommendation (COR) and Level of Evidence (LOE) are cited explicitly. Not summarized. Cited. The same way they appear in the primary source.
When an ACC/AHA clinical practice guideline is updated, the corresponding lesson is reviewed and updated alongside it. A course built on superseded clinical practice guidelines is not a clinical resource. It is a liability.
When Guidelines Have Not Caught Up to the Evidence
Clinical practice guidelines are updated on multi-year cycles. Between updates, important trials publish. Some of them change practice before the formal revision arrives.
Where a landmark trial has published since the most recent clinical practice guideline update and the evidence is strong enough to inform clinical decision-making, it is incorporated explicitly. The lesson clearly distinguishes between what the current guideline recommends and what the most recent evidence suggests. The goal is not to teach ahead of the guidelines — it is to make sure you understand what the evidence actually shows, even when the guideline text has not yet been revised to reflect it.
Built by a Clinician Still in Practice
Paul Logan, PhD, CRNP has practiced cardiovascular medicine for more than 30 years across greater Philadelphia and central Pennsylvania, and has been at WellSpan Cardiology since 2017. He is not a former clinician who moved into education. He sees patients the same week he is writing or reviewing curriculum content.
That matters because textbook cardiology and clinical cardiology are not identical. The distinctions that matter in practice — the situations where the guideline recommendation is clear but the real clinical question is more complicated — can only be taught by someone who still encounters them. An educator who has not practiced in a decade cannot see those nuances. They teach the textbook version and leave the gaps unfilled.
Paul also directs the AG-ACNP graduate program at Saint Joseph's University. He has trained advanced practice clinicians for decades. He knows which specific gaps graduate programs leave in cardiovascular preparation because he identifies those gaps in students every semester. The Academy was designed to address them directly.
Harvey: Your AI Clinical Tutor, Inside Every Lesson
Every lesson in the APP Cardiology Academy includes Harvey, an AI clinical tutor embedded directly in the lesson interface. Harvey is not a general medical chatbot. His knowledge base is built from the same current clinical practice guidelines that structure each lesson.
While you are working through a lesson, Harvey is available to answer the clinical questions that come up in real time — drug mechanisms, guideline thresholds, the reasoning behind a management decision — grounded in the actual ACC/AHA clinical practice guidelines, not generic information from across the web.
Harvey is accessible only inside a lesson. He is not a standalone tool, and he is not accessible from the public site. He is part of the learning environment, available precisely when the question comes up in the material where it matters.
See the Curriculum This Process Produced
16 lessons. Full ACC Core Curriculum coverage. Built from current clinical practice guidelines. Taught by a clinician who still practices.