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| CORRESPONDENCE |
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| Year : 2016 | Volume
: 2
| Issue : 1 | Page : 63-64 |
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Heart failure Association Meeting
VK Chopra
Department of Cardiology, Medanta Hospital, Gurgaon, Haryana, India
| Date of Web Publication | 26-May-2016 |
Correspondence Address:
V K Chopra
Department of Cardiology, Medanta Hospital, Gurgaon, Haryana
India
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/2395-5414.182990
How to cite this article:
Chopra V K. Heart failure Association Meeting. J Pract Cardiovasc Sci 2016;2:63-4 |
Dear Editor,
The Heart Failure Association of India (HFAI) was formed in 2014. We made a small beginning by holding our first conference in February 2015 which was attended by 150 delegates. The second meeting over 1½ days was held this year at Hyderabad [Figure 1], [Figure 2], [Figure 3], which was attended by 500 delegates from across the country. A unique feature of this meeting was that there was representation from Cardiological Society of India, The Heart Failure Society of India, Indian Section – International Society for Heart Research and the Kerala Heart Failure and Transplantation Society, which essentially brought several societies working for heart failure programs together on the same platform. The 2nd day of the meeting featured four parallel sessions: For general physicians, cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, and heart failure nurses and paramedics. In all these sessions there was active participation and vigorous discussion by the delegates. One of the aims of the association is to create a cadre of heart failure nurses and paramedics who would be able to spend enough time with patients to educate them regarding their lifestyle in detail (something which is mostly not done) and also follow-up sick patients telephonically, especially after their discharge from the hospital. They will also be trained in data gathering, which will help in setting up a heart failure registry in India.
Right from the very beginning, we have had an active collaboration with the Heart Failure Association (HFA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Their faculty participated in both our meetings and will continue to do so in future. Furthermore, HFA of ESC agreed to hold a joint session of with the HFAI every year during their annual conference. The first session was held in Seville last year which was chaired by Dr. Stephen Anker and Dr. V. K. Chopra and the speakers were Dr. J. C. Mohan and Dr. B. K. S. Sastry from India and HFA was represented by Dr. Marc Pfeffer and Dr. Andrew Coats. A similar session will be held in May 2016 in Florence during their annual meeting.
As the number of patients with heart failure is expected to increase significantly over the next few years in our country, we request more cardiologists, cardiac surgeons, interventionists, and anesthetists to join the association so that together we may work to help these patients. You are also invited to visit the website www.hfai.in to download the necessary papers and learn more about the association. Furthermore, physicians are invited to send their nurses/paramedics for 1 week of training in caring for heart failure patients to a regional center. This will be funded by the HFAI, and a choice of centers will be offered. In an effort to disseminate information about heart failure among the doctors, the slides of all the lectures given during our meetings are posted on the website for free use by the members. We request doctors to contribute their educational slides for posting on the website after vetting so that their knowledge can be shared by everybody.
Financial support and sponsorship
Nil.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts of interest.
[Figure 1], [Figure 2], [Figure 3]
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