EuroCaReD - the European Cardiac Rehabilitation Database was launched in October 2010 as a pilot project to assess the guideline relation and effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation programmes across Europe.
EuroCaReD was originally introduced to get information on service provision and outcomes in cardiac rehabilitation across Europe, mainly for quality assurance. The basis to build up such a database is the 2004 European data standards of cardiac rehabilitation promoted by the former Nucleus of the Working Group on Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Physiology of the ESC provided by the Cardiology Audit and Registration Data Standards (CARDS).
Information and service provision is essential for quality assurance in cardiac rehabilitation(Fig. 1). This information is necessary not only at local and national but also on the European level. Up to now in cardiac rehabilitation only little and only national data are systematically collected by different databases. Therefore no insight is possible across the European countries with different service provisions. But the success of a future education and accreditation processes planned by European Association for Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (EACPR) depends dramatically on the data collection and quality assessment coming from a common international European core database and data standard.
EuroCaReD is an internet based survey, which has the potential to link existing cardiac rehabilitation databases in the European countries, and also those institutions which plan to join in the future.
EuroCaReD has the potential to survey large cardiac rehabilitation populations, providing a powerful scientific tool (Fig. 2). Data is gained from a ‘real-world’ selection of patients.
EuroCaReD is asking for data from daily clinical practice. As a complement to randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or meta-analyses, registry information can often reveal relevant additional knowledge, which might also be important for better cardiac rehabilitation implementation.
