Members

Dr Miek Smeets is a a general practitioner with a special interest in heart failure care organisation. She works part-time in practice and part-time as a researcher. In 2018, she defended her PhD on the topic of ‘working towards a disease management program for heart failure patients in general practice’. The conclusion of her PhD featured six specific recommendations to optimise care for patients with heart failure in Belgium. As a post-doc, she was funded by the King Baudouin Foundation to implement these recommendations in practice. She and her team founded a Flemish Learning Network on heart failure, uniting eight existing multidisciplinary heart failure projects. Network members exchange best practices and develop materials, protocols and educational modules for primary care, in close collaboration with heart failure specialists. Their next goal is to scale up integrated heart failure care in Belgium.