Welcome to the European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care

Field: Medicine (Health Sciences)

Not without pride I introduce to you the first issue of European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care, a new journal within the family of journals of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). This journal is a new milestone in the history of the ESC working group on Acute Cardiac Care.

The working group on Acute Cardiac Care revised its mission statement last year. Originally when it was created about 10 years ago, the working group was intended to define and defend the role of the cardiologist in managing acute cardiac patients in the intensive acute cardiac care unit (ICCU). In its revised mission, the working group has extended its scope far beyond the walls of the ICCU. The new objective is to improve the quality of care and outcome of patients with acute cardiovascular diseases. The scope of the working group now encompasses the care of the patient with an acute cardiovascular disorder from the first medical contact in the pre-hospital phase up to the end of first week of hospitalization (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

What is acute cardiovascular care?

Improving the outcome of patients with acute cardiovascular diseases requires not only the expertise of the different subspecialties in cardiology (interventional cardiology, electrophysiology, electrocardiology, imaging …) but also of other medical specialties (emergency medicine, intensive care physicians, cardiovascular surgeons, anaesthesiologists, radiologists …) and, last but not least, the contribution of paramedical healthcare professionals (paramedics, nurses, medical technologists …).

Following the successful publishing of the Intensive and Acute Cardiac Care Textbook in January 2011, which was highly commended for the cardiology section of the BMA Medical Book Awards 2011 and which was also warmly appraised in book reviews,1,2 the working group felt a high need to publish an own journal. With approval by the ESC board it was decided to start with a new journal focusing on acute cardiovascular diseases within a family of ESC journals carrying the brand name of European Heart Journal in its title.

European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care will offer a unique integrative approach by combining the expertise of the different subspecialties of cardiology, emergency, and intensive care medicine in the management of patients with acute cardiovascular syndromes. Reading through the journal, cardiologists and all other healthcare professionals working in the field of acute cardiac care will be offered a continuous update that may help them to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of the patients with acute cardiovascular diseases that are under their care. The journal will have a strong educational focus. In addition to original research papers and editorials, ample space will be devoted to educational materials: recommendation papers by scientific bodies of the ESC, invited reviews, illustrative clinical cases, practical tips and tricks, and how-to articles.

The journal will accept submissions dealing with all aspects of acute cardiovascular care. Articles will undergo a thorough peer review by a group of editors, statistical consultants, and reviewers representing the full scientific expertise of the ESC. The editorial team will process submissions within a very short time period and accepted papers will be posted online on the website of the journal within five weeks after acceptance. Citation on PubMed Central will be obtained as quickly as possible. Being an official ESC journal, we will have a formal manuscript transfer possibility from European Heart Journal and other ESC journals to our journal without the necessity to send the paper to new reviewers.

The editorial team hopes to provide the readership of European Heart Journal: Acute Cardiovascular Care a very attractive information source of great practical utility in daily clinical practice that progressively will become an established body of reference and guidance in the management of acute cardiovascular syndromes.