The Association for Acute CardioVascular Care (ACVC) leadership has the ambition to enhance the collaboration with our colleagues in North America. Leading North American doctors have key roles as co-editors of our journal and ACVC is interested in expanding this connection. Experts in acute cardiovascular care from ACVC and from North America met at the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Congress in Amsterdam in 2019 to discuss how we could best collaborate and learn from each other. The European side was led by Christian Hassager and Susanna Price. Steen Kristensen (chair), Kurt Huber (vice chair), Konstantin Krychtiuk (young ACVC) were appointed ACVC ambassadors, while main players on the North American side are David Morrow, Allan Jaffe, Kristin Newby, Jason Katz, Roxana Mehran, and Sean van Diepen.
Figure 1.
ACVC and North American experts in acute cardiovascular care met at the ESC Congress Amsterdam 2019. From left to right: Allan Jaffe, Kristin Newby, Steen Kristensen, Kurt Huber, Christian Hassager and David Morrow.
One of our aims is to set up joint sessions at our main congresses, and the first ‘Transatlantic Perspective on Unanswered Questions in Cardiac Critical Care: Joint Session AHA/ESC-ACVC’ was held at the American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in November 2019 with excellent speakers from both sides. The session was successful and a survey among the participants revealed great interest in a transatlantic cooperation within acute cardiovascular care. Joint sessions were planned for the annual American College of Cardiology (ACC), ACVC, and ESC congresses in 2020, but unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic paralysed these plans and many other important joint initiatives.
As soon as the pandemic is under control we will encourage a visiting fellows programme where young ACVC members will be able to visit well-recognized centres in North America and vice versa. These fellowships could have scientific or clinical purposes or a combination of both. Further activities include publication of joint position papers and consensus documents as well as initiation of transatlantic research projects. A survey to explore the management of acute cardiovascular care in North America and Europe in various patient groups may reveal differences and would stimulate discussion on how we optimize patient treatment and improve management strategies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world of virtual events and tools has provided new digital ways to meet and collaborate. At the virtual ACVC Congress 2021, we have co-organized three interesting sessions on differences in acute cardiac care across the Atlantic. These are focusing on cardiogenic shock, on transatlantic views on education, staffing and more in cardiac intensive care units and on the specific topic ‘And then, there was only COVID, a transatlantic view on a common enemy’.
We hope that this initiative will be a milestone in transatlantic cooperation in favour of improving knowledge and practical implementation of acute cardiovascular care.
Conflict of interest: No conflicts for this specific initiative.