An electronic consultation program impacts on heart failure patients' prognosis: implications for heart failure care

e‐consults are asynchronous, clinician‐to‐clinician exchanges that answer focused, non‐urgent, patient‐specific questions using the electronic medical record. We instituted an e‐consultation programme (2013–2019) for all general practitioners (GPs) referrals to cardiologists that preceded patients' in‐person consultations when considered. In our study, we aimed to analyse the clinical characteristics, 1 year prognosis and the prognostic determinants of patients with a previous diagnosis of HF referred for an e‐consult, categorized by their previous HF‐related hospitalization status (recent hospitalization, <1 year before; remote hospitalization, >1 year before or never been hospitalized because of HF), and to analyse the impact of reducing the time elapsed between e‐consultation and response by the cardiologist in terms of prognosis.