A survey on the quality of care among patients with heart failure in Europe

Background: The EUROHEART programme is a rolling programme of cardiovascular surveys among the member nations of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). These surveys will provide information on the nature of cardiovascular disease and its management. This manuscript describes a survey into the nature and management of heart failure. Aims: The EuroHeart Failure survey aims to describe the quality of hospital care, diagnostic and therapeutic, for patients with suspected or confirmed heart failure in ESC member countries. Patients will be interviewed subsequent to hospital discharge to assess their understanding of their condition, side effects from and their compliance with therapy and their satisfaction with the management for heart failure. The quality of management will be judged against the recommendations contained in the ESC guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of heart failure. Outcome will be further assessed by repeat interviews in 6-12 months time. A further survey of heart failure in 2001/2002 is also planned. Methods: A prospective survey of all deaths and discharges from medical (cardiology, internal medicine and geriatric medicine) and cardiac surgical wards to identify patients with heart failure, suspected or confirmed. Approximately 70 hospital clusters, comprising two to six hospitals in each cluster, in 24 member countries of the ESC are conducting the study. At the time of writing, approximately 30000 deaths and discharges have been screened and approximately 4000 patients have been enrolled. Conclusions: The EuroHeart Survey will allow actual practice to be compared to ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure. The surveys and guidelines should prove mutually informative. The main EuroHeart Failure project will be completed by late 2000. However, new centres volunteering to participate in the study (contact corresponding author) may he accepted providing they have the necessary research personnel and provided funding can hi: agreed fur statistical support anti administration. (C) 2000 European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved

A survey on the quality of care among patients with heart failure in Europe

Background: The EUROHEART programme is a rolling programme of cardiovascular surveys among the member nations of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). These surveys will provide information on the nature of cardiovascular disease and its management. This manuscript describes a survey into the nature and management of heart failure. Aims: The EuroHeart Failure survey aims to describe the quality of hospital care, diagnostic and therapeutic, for patients with suspected or confirmed heart failure in ESC member countries. Patients will be interviewed subsequent to hospital discharge to assess their understanding of their condition, side effects from and their compliance with therapy and their satisfaction with the management for heart failure. The quality of management will be judged against the recommendations contained in the ESC guidelines on diagnosis and treatment of heart failure. Outcome will be further assessed by repeat interviews in 6-12 months time. A further survey of heart failure in 2001/2002 is also planned. Methods: A prospective survey of all deaths and discharges from medical (cardiology, internal medicine and geriatric medicine) and cardiac surgical wards to identify patients with heart failure, suspected or confirmed. Approximately 70 hospital clusters, comprising two to six hospitals in each cluster, in 24 member countries of the ESC are conducting the study. At the time of writing, approximately 30000 deaths and discharges have been screened and approximately 4000 patients have been enrolled. Conclusions: The EuroHeart Survey will allow actual practice to be compared to ESC guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure. The surveys and guidelines should prove mutually informative. The main EuroHeart Failure project will be completed by late 2000. However, new centres volunteering to participate in the study (contact corresponding author) may he accepted providing they have the necessary research personnel and provided funding can hi: agreed fur statistical support anti administration. (C) 2000 European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved.</p

Increasing awareness and improving the management of heart failure in Europe:the IMPROVEMENT of HF initiative

Background: Previous reports suggest that patients with suspected heart failure are inadequately investigated and that patients who do have heart failure are sub-optimally treated. Guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of heart failure have been published by the European Society of Cardiology and provide a framework for the management of heart failure against which to judge current medical practice. Both primary care and hospital physicians are responsible for ensuring appropriate management of patients with heart failure. This programme concentrates on management of heart failure in primary care and is complementary to a similar exercise that will be conducted in 50 European regions (EUROHEART-CHF). Aims: The IMPROVEMENT of HF initiative investigates, in Europe, how primary care physicians perceive heart failure should be diagnosed and treated and whether they perceive that they are provided with adequate support to implement best medical practice. Subsequently, their perceptions are compared to their actual practice by reviewing relevant case notes. The results will be used to recommend changes in practice. A future study is planned to analyse the impact of the initiative. Methods: The initiative comprises a research phase and an educational phase. For the research phase, 10 regional centres (to include both urban and rural areas) from each of 14 participating countries have been identified and each region has randomly selected 10 primary healthcare physicians. The primary healthcare physicians are participating in two surveys: a 'perception' survey and an 'actual practice' survey. For the 'actual practice' survey, the physicians are supplying case notes of nine patients who have or are at high risk of having heart failure. The results of these surveys will be used to organise an educational programme. Conclusion: This study is expected to provide valuable data on the perceptions of primary care physicians about heart failure, possible deficiencies in the current provision of care and how any deficiencies may be corrected. (C) 1999 Published by European Society of Cardiology. All rights reserved

Pierre Auger Observatory and Telescope Array: Joint Contributions to the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2013)

Joint contributions of the Pierre Auger and Telescope Array Collaborations to the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2013International audienceJoint contributions of the Pierre Auger and Telescope Array Collaborations to the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 2013: cross-calibration of the fluorescence telescopes, large scale anisotropies and mass composition