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Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in Europe and require continuity of care even when health systems are put under pressure by sudden crises: the free European Resil-Card platform arrives
An online platform, completely free of charge, that healthcare professionals and organisations can use as a self-assessment tool to analyse the capacity of their cardiovascular pathways to withstand critical situations and identify concrete solutions to strengthen their resilience. This is the European Resil-Card project, designed to help hospitals and healthcare systems prepare for crises such as pandemics, conflicts or major emergencies. Today more than ever, they emphasise from the Italian Society of Interventional Cardiology (Gise), this is a fundamental project.The reason is easily said: in an increasingly complex international scenario, cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of death in Europe and require continuity of care even when health systems are put under pressure by sudden crises.
The Platform
The Resil-Card platform will soon be online after three years of work. Developed as part of an initiative funded by the European EU4Health programme with the aim of supporting organisations delivering cardiovascular care in strengthening their preparedness, improving service coordination and protecting patient health outcomes in times of crisis, it will be available in the coming weeks through a dedicated access on the Gise website, reserved for healthcare professionals. It will offer a structured self-assessment framework enabling healthcare teams to analyse the level of preparedness of cardiovascular services and to identify concrete actions to ensure continuity of care when healthcare systems are faced with situations of severe pressure or disruption.
Systems to be upgraded
'Cardiovascular diseases are still the main cause of death in Europe today,' explains Alfredo Marchese, director of the Interventional Cardiology Unit at the Santa Maria Hospital in Bari and president of the Italian Society of Interventional Cardiology (Gise), representing Italia, which took part in the project. 'This is why continuity and resilience of care pathways are considered a public health priority. Despite advances in diagnosis and treatment, the crises of recent years - from pandemics to geopolitical instability - have highlighted the vulnerability of healthcare systems and the difficulty in ensuring continuity of care in emergency contexts.'
'Cardiovascular care must remain available regardless of the difficulties that healthcare systems may face,' continues William Wijns, Professor of Interventional Cardiology at the University of Galway and coordinator of the We Care-Resil-Card project. The Resil-Card tool offers healthcare teams a practical way to assess their own level of preparedness, identify opportunities for improvement and ensure that patients continue to receive life-saving care when it is most needed'. As Ariadna Sanz, Health Policy Manager of the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut) notes, "Health systems today are required to operate in an increasingly complex and unpredictable environment. Tools like Resil-Card help shift the focus from simply responding to crises to proactively building robust and adaptable cardiovascular care pathways that protect patients in the long term'.
A team effort
The development of the Resil-Card tool was based on a multidisciplinary process involving cardiovascular experts, health professionals, public health specialists, patient organisations and health policy representatives from several European countries. The work included reviews of scientific literature and analyses of existing models of health preparedness, as well as consultations with numerous stakeholders and co-creation workshops. The actual experiences of healthcare professionals and patient representatives were integrated throughout the development process, with the aim of ensuring that the tool reflects the concrete conditions under which cardiovascular care is delivered. The methodological path also included iterative testing and validation phases that allowed the tool to be refined and its scientific robustness and practical usefulness for daily use by clinical teams to be verified. "From the very beginning, Resil-Card was developed together with clinicians, patient representatives and health system experts to ensure that it reflected real practice," says Niek Klazinga, Professor Emeritus of Social Medicine at Amsterdam University Medical Centre. "The result is a tool that combines scientific rigour and practical applicability, enabling health teams to turn the concept of resilience into concrete actions.
How it works
