Heart Team Academy is an initiative of Dr. Peyman Sardari Nia from Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. The idea was conceived in September 2020, after which he partnered with Dr. Thomas Modine from Bordeaux to forward the project. They consulted over the course of 2020 and 2021 with different stakeholders in Europe and US drafting a consensus document. There after a group of prominent cardiologists and cardiac surgeons were identified as founding scientific committee of the academy.
The cornerstone of the Heart Team Academy is patient-centred care by redefining, promoting, researching, advancing, and teaching the concept of the Heart Team. Therefore, for establishing the academy it was of paramount importance that the fundamental premise of patient-centred vision would be honoured. Therefore, patient organizations were consulted and invited to engage from the inception.
One of the largest heart patient organization in Europe, Dutch Heart Patient Organization (Hartpatienten.nl), a foundation dating back to 1970, supported the project.
Dutch Patient Organization sponsored and founded the Heart Team Academy officially on 11th August 2021. The Dutch patient organization with consultation of involved physicians nominated the first board of the Academy to develop and direct an independent global organization to advance patient-centred multidisciplinary approach for cardiovascular diseases.