An informative system for chronic heart failure patients follow-up (CHeF)

To face the challenge of chronic heart failure diagnostic work-up, an information system (CHeF) has been developed, which allows data collection from ambulatory and/or inpatients in order to improve individual care and to establish a database for prospective/retrospective analyses. A scalable structure has been adopted to let the system run in different environments (from stand-alone systems to those strictly integrated with external systems). The CHeF core system was designed as a meta-definition database, in order to follow frequently updated parameter tracking and to fit physicians' research results. This structure, characterized by a dynamic interface developed in Java, permits rapid changes to structure and functionality.