Oberoi Consulting have been supporting Westcliffe Medical Practice Group to improve the early identification and management of patients with Atrial Fibrillation (AF).
Without pro-active case finding there is a concern that many patients, with AF, will remain undetected and untreated, until they suffer a preventable stroke.
Objectives:
- Measure the approach to support early detection of AF in the over 65 age group in real world primary care settings
- Monitor whether a prompt-based system supports increased and effective detection of AF and subsequent AF-stroke management
- Track AF prevalence rates as a result of the intervention
- Anti-coagulate all newly diagnosed AF patients in line with the NICE guidance CG180.
- Audit and benchmark the data and findings across the group
Solution:
Working closely with the clinical team, Oberoi developed a protocol to embed into the GP clinical system; which prompts the user with a message for anyone over 65 years of age, where cardiac rhythm has not been coded in the previous 12 months. The prompt was linked to a data-entry template to capture the outcome of the intervention.
50 Clinical staff were issued with Kardia ECG devices, supplied by Oberoi Consulting, to ensure quick and simple case finding could take place contemporaneously, with the results recorded in a template designed to support the project.
The project was launched through an educational session for clinicians from the Westcliffe Medical Group.
Results:
Re-audit after 6 months collected data to show the following.
AF Prevalence increased from 1.67% to 1.79% for the group.
At baseline, a total of 4,124 patients were identified as being “eligible” for AF case finding.
The number of patients screened for AF over the 6 months was 1,538 (37%).
Within the first six months, 63 new cases of AF were diagnosed:
- 22 out the 63 new cases (35%) were diagnosed in Secondary Care.
- 41 of these 63 new cases (65%) were diagnosed following active case finding, supported by the embedded prompt, in Primary Care.
- 38 of the 41 new cases (93%), diagnosed in Primary Care with AF, were then anti-coagulated.
To download this case study, please click here.
Talk to us about AF case finding within your clinical system – call 01332 224 251 or email sales@oberoi-consulting.com