Dear readers,
Welcome to this first issue of the European Heart Journal - Digital Health, which we are proud to present to you today, albeit in difficult times. Sadly, we are all suffering from the current pandemic pushing our healthcare to the limit. The outcome is still unknown, but one of the lessons we have learned is that digital technology is essential to ongoing care and to staying connected to share our clinical and scientific knowledge about the virus. Another notable lesson is the important contribution of the literature to evaluate and disseminate new scientific insights and discoveries. While it is sometimes criticized and can be improved in some areas, the system of peer review in place to evaluate scientific research has proven imperative.
The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) decided earlier this year to add the European Heart Journal - Digital Health to its journal family. This is a new milestone of the digital mission that the European Society of Cardiology mapped out a few years ago. In retrospect, for this it is an excellent time. Cardiology was one of the first medical professions to embrace computer technology for research and to improve the care of patients with cardiovascular disease. Today more than ever cardiology relies heavily on medical technology. Cardiovascular imaging, interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, heart failure, and other sub-specialties can no longer do without advanced computer technologies and amply anticipate the further implementation of state-of-the-art computer applications such as artificial intelligence, big data management, remote monitoring, and others, to be able to meet growing complex healthcare demands.
The ambition of the European Heart Journal - Digital Health is to meet this rapidly growing clinical and scientific interest for a better understanding of complex medically applied digital technologies. The journal intends to link clinical practice and digital technology. In doing so, we strive to promote excellence in digital health through the reporting of high quality, original preclinical and clinical research, reviews, opinions, images, and short reports. We also provide sustainable education in digital health topics through a teaching series. The journal offers authors many attractive audiovisual features to best showcase their work, such as graphic and lay abstracts, audio commentaries describing complex figures, and the option to submit video abstracts. A video-recorded 5-minute presentation accompanying a publication is very welcome and recommended.
As editor-in-chief, I am proud that this journal is a new member of the authoritative ESC Family, and would like to take this opportunity to thank the ESC Executive Board for their decision to add this new title. I am also very grateful to the Digital Health Committee (DHC), the journal’s place of origin, for their encouragement and support which I received when initiating this journal. An editorial from the Chairman of the DHC, Professor Martin Cowie (Imperial College, London, UK) can be found on the following pages. I look forward to further intensifying the cooperation with the DHC. In addition, there are also close links with the eCardiology Working Group of the ESC, which has been active for decades on subjects in which digital cardiology plays a major role. Finally, I would like to thank the staff of the ESC publications team and our publisher Oxford University Press for their valuable advices and support in setting up the journal.
The journal’s ambition is to excel in Digital Health-relevant topics, which can only be made possible by the presence and support of a powerful editorial team. I am therefore delighted that we have been able to put together an excellent editorial board, with expert scientists in cardiology and digital health from around the globe, who are enthusiastic about further shaping the future of cardiovascular digital health.
This impulse and eagerness are also reflected in this first issue, in which we present to you a range of different topics around Digital Health and cardiology. Among them are in silico computer simulations, virtual reality for preoperative surgery planning, AI-based EKG analysis for precision medicine, tele-monitoring, social media in cardiovascular medicine, as well as an overview of remote rehabilitation prospects.
The fact that we can present this journal to you today is also thanks to a special and distinguished group of doctors and scientists who had the courage to present their work in a new virtual digital health journal launched a year ago, actually the forerunner of our new journal. In doing so, they paved the way for us. Take a look at their publications, which you can access on the escardio website using this link: https://bit.ly/33UJRny. We are indebted and very grateful to these founding fathers and pay tribute to this group of visionary scientists.
We are committed to making European Heart Journal - Digital Health the Digital Health journal of choice in cardiology. We look forward to working with you to advance medicine, and especially cardiovascular care, through the publication of high-quality research, new developments and clinical implementations in which Digital Health plays a prominent role. The ESC and the ESC Journal Family are connected to the global cardiovascular community, enabling us to provide you with the optimal platform to present your work. In this way, together we can shape the future of digital health and cardiovascular care. We look forward to your submissions!
Sincerely,
The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Editors of the European Heart Journal - Digital Health or of the European Society of Cardiology.