From 28 to 30 August,SHINE 2Europe joined cardiovascular experts from around the world at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2026 in Munich, Germany. It is one of the world’s largest cardiovascular conferences, and SHINE went to share insights from the European AI4HF project on how patients and healthcare professionals view the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in heart failure care.
AI4HF stands for “Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence for Personalised Risk Assessment in Chronic Heart Failure” and it is an innovative initiative that harnesses the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide personalized risk assessment and care plans for individuals living with Chronic Heart Failure. It is a four-year project, led by a consortium of 16 international partners and funded by the European Commission.
Bringing stakeholder voices into the development of AI
Representing SHINE and AI4HF, Research Director Miriam Cabrita contributed to two sessions focused on an essential question: How can we make sure that AI solutions for healthcare respond to the needs and expectations of the people who will ultimately use them?
In AI4HF, SHINE leads a large-scale stakeholder engagement strategy involving patients, healthcare professionals and others across Europe and globally. Instead of asking for their views only after the technology was developed, stakeholders have been involved throughout the development process, helping the project, understand their needs, expectations and concerns around AI-supported heart failure care.
At the ESC Congress 2026, Miriam Cabrita was one of the presenters at the session “The artificial intelligence frontier in heart failure: from promise to trustworthy practice”, with lessons learnt from that process. In her presentation “Artificial intelligence in heart failure: expectations from patients and cardiologists”, the Research Director highlighted what patients and healthcare professionals expect from AI and why these perspectives need to be considered alongside clinical evidence and technological performance.
The session brought together complementary perspectives on trustworthy AI, from stakeholder engagement and clinical phenotyping to machine-learning models for heart failure. A key message emerged: trustworthy AI does not depend on technology alone. Good data and robust models matter, but so do people.
From listening to meaningful digital solutions
SHINE also hosted an ESC TV Connect conversation, another format featured at the Congress, that will soon be available at the ESC 365 platform. Titled “Turning stakeholder voices into meaningful digital solutions for heart failure” and joined by clinical and technical experts from AI4HF, the discussion explored how insights gathered from stakeholders can be translated into concrete choices when designing digital health solutions.
For SHINE, participating in the ESC Congress 2026 was an important opportunity to bring social science and stakeholder perspectives into one of the world’s major clinical and scientific forums.
Find out more about AI4HF: https://www.ai4hf.com/