The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care
The
Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care provides videos developed from the launch of the
Acute Coronary Syndrome Clinical Care Standard You can also obtain resources from their website including the Acute Coronary Syndromes Clinical Care Standard and Implementation Resources including Clinician Fact Sheets.
The Heart Foundation
The Heart foundation has resources available on their website specifically for Health Professionals. Including 'Information for your Patients' and 'Guidelines and Tools'.
RACGP
NVDPA
The National Vascular Disease Prevention Alliance (NVDPA) is an alliance of four leading and well-known Australian charities: Diabetes Australia, the National Heart Foundation of Australia, Kidney Health Australia and the National Stroke Foundation.
Heart Health report
The
Heart Health report outlines a national implementation strategy for heart health policy, including the incorporation of the Absolute Cardiovascular Risk Assessment tool into standard general practice in Australia. The tool is an online questionnaire to be filled in by a patient's GP to assess their risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and serves as a proactive, simple and cost-effective method to lower the incidence of heart disease and related deaths. Heart disease is a leading cause of death in Australia, killing one Australian every 12 minutes. Most people at risk of developing heart disease are unaware of the fact, and it is largely preventable through early detection and management.
Heart Failure Guidelines
New Australian Guidelines for the management of Heart Failure
The National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand published new clinical guidelines for the management of patients with heart failure on 2/8/18.
One of the main changes from previous guidelines is that heart failure is now categorized according to whether it is associated with a reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) below 50% (previously 40%) or preserved LVEF of 50% or more. There is also a diagnostic category for patients with preserved ejection fraction that have symptoms and signs of Heart Failure with left ventricular hypertrophy, left atrial enlargement and or diastolic dysfunction.
The guidelines in relation to pharmaceutical treatment options include the recommendation of using inhibitors to help prevent heart failure and heart-failure related hospital admissions in patients with type 2 Diabetes and CVS disease. Angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitors (ARNi) are also recommended for selected patients.
The Cardiology team at Gold Coast Health is trialing an email advice service where GPs can send de-identified general enquiries to the specialists. You can ask questions that may help you manage your patients in primary care. The email address for this service is:
GCCardiologyAdvice@health.qld.gov.au
It will usually be responded with 2 working days.
Reasonable requests include:
- ECG interpretation e.g. is this really LVH? Are these ECG findings compatible with a normal variant? What further investigations would you recommend in a patient with this ECG?
- Murmurs e.g. is an echo all that is required or should the patient have a formal outpatient review?
- Palpitations e.g. is a 24 hour tape required on this patient or would another form of monitoring be appropriate? Can this history be regarded as benign or is further investigation required?
- Atrial fibrillation e.g. rate or rhythm control in this patient? Does the patient require anticoagulation? Is an outpatient appointment necessary or is an echo all that is required at this stage? What would you recommend to control the AF rate in this patent?
- Management of anti platelet agents
NOTE: For confidentiality reasons you should ensure there are no patient identifiers as email is not a secure/confidential form of transmission.