GRASP-HF: a heart failure snapshot study

Introduction

The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has recognised that heart failure (HF) is a disease with a particular need for continuous epidemiological research. For more than a decade, the ESC has developed several large and well-designed registries, to describe more accurately the demographic, clinical, and therapeutic characteristics of patients with HF, in both acute and chronic settings.

GRASP-HF is a longitudinal study with short enrolment period and a close follow-up (6 months), to capture the relevant clinical information of patients with HF, including their acute episodes of decompensation. It will enable us to improve our knowledge on epidemiology and outcomes of real-world HF patients.

In addition, information collected by GRASP will assess adherence to the 2021 ESC HF Guidelines, in both chronic and acute HF. It will also complement the development of future guidelines.

The GRASP-HF snapshot study will evolve in parallel with the long-term HFA initiative – ICARe-HF: the Improving Care through Accreditation and Recognition in Heart Failure (ICARe-HF) programme which will verify the performance of enrolled individual centres through data collection. If a centre meets or exceeds the performance standards, it will be accredited as an HFA Quality of Care Centre (QCC).

Objectives

The general objectives of the GRASP-HF snapshot study are:

1. To provide a better understanding of medical practice based on real-world data, collected both across Europe and the rest of the world, using robust methodology and representation within each country.
2. To assess contemporary patterns of HF management in practice and to assess adherence to the 2021 ESC Guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of acute and chronic heart failure, and how these patterns relate to outcomes.
3. To check the ability of HFA Quality of Care Centres (QCC) to continuously improve patient care.

Characteristics

This observational study is based on the consecutive enrolment (every consecutive patient with chronic or acute HF) of patients presenting to cardiology centres in European, Mediterranean and some non-European countries.

Site selection in each participating country targets a sample of hospitals of different levels of complexity. It will focus on a broad spectrum of cardiology and HF speciality units that regularly follow patients with chronic HF and/or admit patients with acute, pre-existing or new onset HF in order to build up a network of centres representative of a wide spectrum of real-world settings in ESC member and affiliated countries.

Population

All adult patients with chronic or acute heart failure, regardless of ejection fraction, either:

• Outpatient with chronic HF (including first-time diagnosis), according to the clinical judgment, or                       
• Patients admitted to hospital or presenting to an emergency department or acute out-patient care for acute HF for whom an IV (diuretics, inotropes, vasodilators) or mechanical therapy for HF (mechanical circulatory support) is administered.

Study organisation

The registry is managed by the HF Snapshot Study Task Force.

Study Task Force

• Prof. Ovidiu Chioncel – chair (Romania)
• Assoc. Prof. Marianna Adamo (Italy)
• Prof. Offer Amir (Israel)
• Dr. Antonio Canatta (UK)
• Dr. Brenda Moura (Portugal)
• Assoc. Prof. Gianluigi Savarese (Sweden)
• Prof. Mariya Tokmakova (Bulgaria)

Steering Committee

A Registry Steering Committee is composed of one National Coordinator per participating country. The National Cardiac Societies are responsible for the selection of the national coordinators who are in charge of the registry implementation and running of the registry in their respective countries.

If you are interested in participating, please contact registries@escardio.org.

Explore other registries that are currently recruiting.

Enrolled? Get certified as an HFA Quality of Care Centre

Via data collected through GRASP-HF, the Improving Care through Accreditation and Recognition in Heart Failure (ICARe-HF) programme will verify the performance of enrolled centres. Centres meeting the performance standards can be accredited with the HFA Quality of Care Centre (QCC) designation.

Find out more about the benefits of the ICARe-HF programme.