Gergely Meszaros, a pulmonary hypertension advocate and Project Manager at the European Reference Network for Rare Lung Diseases, ERN-LUNG, was invited to speak at the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP) of the European Society of Cardiology Annual Congress in Edinburgh, UK, on June 23-24, 2023.
Gergely’s talk was about the 2022 joint European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and European Respiratory Society (ERS) clinical guidelines for the diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary
hypertension, presented at the ESC Congress in September 2022, and the important role that patient representatives played in their development through the participation in the work of the dedicated Task Force over the period 2020-2022 (Gergely himself and Pisana Ferrari).
One of the most relevant innovations, from a patient point of view, he said was the introduction of the concept of shared decision making, in five different sections.
Gergely and Pisana were involved in the co-authoring of entirely new sections:
- 6.2.6. Patient-reported outcome measures
- 6.3.2.1. Pregnancy and birth control
- 12.3. Patient associations and patient empowerment
Gergely and Pisana were also involved in many other sections that are crucial from the patient perspective and took part in the small group discussion on specific topics (e.g. pulmonary hypertension centres).
Gergely’s presentation was well received, even from those who were not linked to pulmonary hypertension. Thanks to the presentation, Gergely was contacted after the congress to help linking some professionals.