The Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) Heart Failure (HF) guidelines program provides guidance to clinicians, policy-makers and health-systems as to the evidence supporting existing and emerging management of patients with heart failure. The 2017 update is a comprehensive set of guidelines incorporating new evidence and identifying areas of uncertainty and challenges facing healthcare providers in HF management. It integrates and updates the last decade of HF guidelines, along with a large body of new research and data.

The constitution and roles of the primary and secondary panels, systematic review strategy, and methods for formulating the recommendations are described on www.ccs.ca. The recommendations were developed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) standards. The primary panelists were principally responsible for the document, with input from secondary panelists and external content experts where needed.

The sections on atrial fibrillation (AF), cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT), and cardio-oncology were developed in collaboration with the respective guidelines committee, and are endorsed by those committees from a HF perspective.