Introduction: Heart failure (HF) is disease with high morbidity and mortality, despite advanced treatment. European Society of Cardiology (ESC), Heart Failure Association (HFA) and Croatian Heart Failure Society try to improve prognosis for HF patients and create projects. (1,2) Aim of this paper is review of some recent projects to show directions of ESC, HFA and Croatian HF society plans to cure better HF patients.
Methods: With the help of ESC institution, from expert groups to medical centers with logistics support and IT statistics teams, Croatian HF society develops quality projects.
Results: We have a lot of initiatives that include Registries in which we have been participating since 2005. The Peptide for life study find out that utilization of natriuretic peptide increased in emergency department, leading to improved diagnosis and treatment. (3) The results of HFA ATLAS study has shown heterogeneity in HF disease burden, the resources available for its management and data quality across ESC members. The findings emphasize the need for a systematic approach to this problem. An ongoing initiative is Central-Eastern Europe Quality of Care Centers study. The objective of the research is to assess risk factors, clinical characteristics and quality of care for hospitalized HF patients and to assess adherence to the Guidelines. Recent, ICARe-HF project has been created by HFA and National Heart Failure Societies (NHFS). Accreditation process for ICARe-HF is developed to improve HF outcomes across Europe. ICARe-HF support excellence by recognizing quality care centers (QCC) who apply best practices, research and education, and enables raising standards in HF care facilities. ICARe-HF centers could be general, specialized and advanced. There are two phases in accreditation. Phase 1 is pre-accreditation part with identification of the centre’s category; phase 2 implies validation of performance and application of HFA Guidelines through data collected in the GRASP-HF Register. The aim of this Register is analysis of the application of ESC guidelines for diagnosis and treatment of HF patients through data collection via Register („the new global registries and surveys program-GRASP“).
Conclusion: ESC and HFA continuously creates and implements projects, guidelines and registries with a goal of treatment patients with HF better. Our mission is to actively participate in it.