Heart teams in the Netherlands: From teamwork to data‑driven decision-making

For all patients with cardiovascular disease requiring an intervention, this is a major life event. The heart team concept is one of the most exciting and effective team modalities to ensure cost-effective application of invasive cardiovascular care. It optimises patient selection in a complex decision-making process and identifies risk/benefit ratios of different interventions. Informed consent and patient safety should be at the centre of these decisions. To deal with increased load of medical data in the future, artificial intelligence could enable objective and effective interpretation of medical imaging and decision support. This technical support is indispensable to meet current patient and societal demands for informed consent, shared decision-making, outcome improvement and safety. The heart team should be restructured with clear leadership, accountability, and process and outcome measurement of interventions. In this way, the heart team concept in the Netherlands will be ready for the future.