Every year 1.9 million EU inhabitants die from heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases. There are estimates that as much as half of these deadly incidents can be avoided.

What would people say if the knew that Uncle Edwin could still be alive having accessed good preventive care? Or that your mother might have left hospital recovered rather than dead if the emergency care procedures had been in accordance with modern guide lines?

This is the kind of questions I will raise in a couple of days, lecturing in Madrid. Cardiologists from around the world will be discussing the future of heart disease medical care. My theme at this European Conference on the Future of Cardiology will touch on how to empower the health care consumers by information. Here there are many sad stories to tell.

European consumers have the legal rights to move across national borders to pick the best care for their cardiovascular care. What keeps them back is especially the lack of information to build informed decisions regarding where to have a treatment. Here the European Society of Cardiology, hosts of the conference, has an important source of knowledge – but till now rather secretive about the findings. My provocative question will be: Isn’t it high time to offer the European health care consumers the full picture of outcomes allowing them to build own judgements? Wouldn’t consumer awareness about “post code lottery” behaviour and the options to take own action put a constructive pressure on European cardiovascular disease health care?

I will suggest a co-operation on developing a Cardiovascular Care Index of Europe, similar to what the Powerhouse already delivers. Such a comparison tool would open for a more stringent debate on how to improve care – not behind closed doors, but in dialogue with active, informed consumers. Learning that hundreds of thousands of people every year could survive a heart condition given appropriate care, consumers will ask for exactly such opening.

Johan Hjertqvist
President