The EXercise Prescription in Everyday practice & Rehabilitative Training (EXPERT) tool is a system that provides a personalised exercise prescription for cardiovascular diseases that follows the latest EAPC recommendations and evidence. This system assists physicians and healthcare professionals in choosing and adopting the optimal exercise intervention in patients with various CVDs and/or a combination of risk factors.
The first concept of the EXPERT tool was designed in 2015, by an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists and medical specialists of Hasselt University (UHasselt), in collaboration with the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC), an association of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). In April 2017 at the EuroPrevent congress in Málaga, Spain, the EXPERT tool was officially launched. Several versions of the EXPERT tool with Decision Support System (DSS) and/or Training Tool (TT) were realized and used in different settings and studies. Since 2021 the EXPERT Training Tool became a separate software application, and the only one that is available for purchase via ESC.
The application is prepared for translation to your own language, at the moment we support English and Dutch.
The EXPERT tool is supported by the EXPERT working group and EAPC, and maintained by UHasselt. To explore possible collaboration regarding the use of any part of the EXPERT tool (or API) in particular (clinical) studies and projects, please contact us at expert-tool@uhasselt.be.
After you purchased a license code at the ESC EXPERT Training Tool page, you can activate it here. Then, after completing your account registration, you will be able to log in and use the Training Tool.
Notice that licenses are only available for the Training Tool, not for the Decision Support System.
The EXPERT Training Tool release of november 2025 (v5.1.0) contains minor updates and typo fixes in the algorithm and DSS user interface. In the Training Tool there were several major updates:
Existing accounts at the launch of v5.1.0 will be upgraded automatically and free of additional charges, for the rest of their current license period.
The EXPERT Training Tool allows healthcare professionals to compare their exercise prescriptions to predetermined patient cases with the outcome of the EXPERT Training Tool algorithm, developed according to EAPC and ESC position statements/guidelines and the expert opinions of the EAPC EXPERT group members. The interactive tool also explains the rationale behind the outcome of the exercise prescriptions. The EXPERT Training Tool is intended to be used for educational and (individual) training purposes only, but will help rehabilitation professionals as well as students to further develop exercise prescription skills which are beneficial for their rehabilitation practice. No new patient cases can be entered, you can only train on the 60 predefined training patient cases, which are divided into 4 difficulty levels.
To explore possible collaboration regarding the use of the EXPERT Training Tool in your educational or training program, please contact us at expert-tool@uhasselt.be.
Licenses (1 year) to the EXPERT Training Tool can be purchased at the ESC EXPERT Training Tool page, by all users that have ESC+EAPC memberships (both have a free option).
The EXPERT Decision Support System is an interactive digital tool to assist health care professionals to select maximally clinically effective and medically safe training modalities for patients with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. The tool acts as a Decision Support System / Recommender System to support prescription of personalized exercise training. Training is also possible because the full Training Tool is also available in the Decision Support System. Features of the EXPERT Decision Support System are:
To explore possible collaboration regarding the use of the EXPERT Decision Support System in particular studies and projects, please contact us at expert-tool@uhasselt.be
Given the Medical Device Regulation, this system can only be used with proper approval according to the regulations that locally apply. Therefore, the EXPERT Decision Support System can only be used as an investigational medical device in scientific studies with ethical approval, and not yet in general clinical practice.
The EXPERT API is a JSON HTTPS REST API without any graphical user interface. You send patient data, and receive a personalized prescription that takes into account all comorbidities and risk factors.
To explore possible collaboration regarding the use of the EXPERT API in particular studies and projects, please contact us at expert-tool@uhasselt.be.
Dominique Hansen
Associate Professor, Rehabilitation and Exercise Physiology in Internal Diseases (Hasselt University/Jessa Hospital - Belgium)
"With respect to exercise prescription in cardiovascular rehabilitation, all knowledge available from clinical guidelines, scientific evidence and expert opinions is brought together into a single algorithm and decision support system for the first time. The EXPERT tool will contribute to better exercise prescription and tailored exercise intervention for every patient with cardiovascular disease (risk)."
Kim Bonne
Physiotherapist, Deputy Head of Department - Rehabilitation and Health Center (ReGo, Jessa Hospital - Belgium)
"As a clinician it is important to choose the best evidence-based option of rehabilitation that exists for our cardiac patients. My experience shows that each clinician has their own way of creating a rehabilitation scheme. By using the EXPERT tool I can say that a lot of obstacles that influence rehabilitation will disappear. The EXPERT tool takes into account a lot of risk factors and exercise modifiers such as diabetes, obesity, dislipidemia, hypertension, sarcopenia, renal failure, COPD, etc. It also takes into account the side-effects of medication (on respiration and muscles), which has a strong influence on the training capacity of the patient. The summary of all these things gives a recommendation for the training. The EXPERT tool can ensure that all clinicians give the same training advice to their patients. So, a standard individualised training programme will be realised."