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What is ECHSA

The European Congenital Heart Surgeons Association (ECHSA) is the scientific society representing the congenital heart surgeons of Europe.  Its membership initially included only highly selected European leaders in the field, but it has gradually expanded to include the entire community of pediatric and congenital heart surgeons of Europe, and, also, of other continents.  ECHSA has been developing in “sisterhood” and close collaboration with the Congenital Heart Surgeons Society (CHSS) of the USA.  

The aim of ECHSA is to improve the surgical treatment of patients with congenital heart disease irrespective of their race, religion, origin, wealth, or other discriminative factors.  For realization of these aims, our Association employs three main types of activities:

1) We carry out major co-operative multi-institutional clinical research, pooling the resources of centers across the world, publishing the results of these studies in most respected international peer reviewed scientific journals.

2) We have developed an ever expanding Database (the ECHSA Congenital Database, http://www.echsacongenitaldb.org), already containing detailed data on 300,000 operations for CHD.  To maximize the benefit of this invaluable body of “large data”, we have created unique analytical and quality improvement tools empowering sophisticated risk stratification, benchmarking, and quality improvement initiatives for centers, countries, and industry partners. 

3) We organize high-level courses, seminars and conferences, in collaboration with other scientific societies of related specialties.  These congresses are  all open to the entire CHD community, aiming to enhance and disseminate relevant knowledge, to foster the exchange of ideas, and to further scientific and technological developments in the field, providing high quality education regarding medical and technological innovations, for the benefit of patients around the world.

Empowered by your support, and by strong membership growth in Europe and in all regions of the world, we are committed to continued strengthening of our Association!