Novel plans and ambitions to enhance EPCCS’ activities formulated during Council Meeting

The EPCCS Council continues to grow, with more countries being represented: currently 23 countries are involved. Stakeholders in primary care and cardiovascular disease and representatives of societies of countries not yet represented in the EPCCS Council are encouraged to join the EPCCS, please contact us at info@medconinternational.com.

CVD remains the predominant cause of morbidity and mortality and the majority of patients is managed in primary care. During the two-day meeting in Bucharest, it was emphasized that awareness of EPCCS among European GPs stays a key issue, and there is a need to further expand.

Efforts to increase EPCCS’s outreach include better use of social media, increasing awareness among national society members via country representatives, and posting regular updates on EPCCS activities in the European Journal of General Practice. A survey will be send out to the existing EPCCS network, asking what people need and their feedback on the website. Country representatives are encouraged to share more country-specific information, to be posted on the country pages. Also, information on the national societies will be added to country pages.

Future ambitions of EPCCS include facilitating CVD research initiatives in primary care. Primary care physicians with research aspirations could benefit from the network by sending out surveys on various clinical settings. Data could be presented at the summit. This might create opportunities for young doctors to collaborate across borders and present their work at the summit. To facilitate collaborations, the expertise of Council members will be listed on the website.

The EPCCS Practical guidance documents are well appreciated by the Council, and members spread the documents within their network. Council members will continue to provide translations in their own language, when relevant. As an experiment, we will provide translations of the abstract of the hypertension guidance in all languages on the country pages, as this may invite more people to read the full document. In line with a proposed session at the next EPCCS Summit, comorbidities was also proposed to be a priority area for a next EPCCS Practical Guidance document.

EPCCS will also look into development of online e-learning modules, with an accumulating database of a variety of topics. Both skill-based and content-based modules will be considered. E-learning may be EBAC-accredited. We are aware the not all national societies accept EBAC credits, but it is not feasible for EPCCS to set up accreditation in all countries separately.

Listen to Council Members Cormac O'Dubhghaill (Ireland) and Zehra Daghli (Turkey) who give an impression of the Council Meeting