Timely management of chest pain pilot

EOIs now open

Victorians living in rural and regional areas are more likely to experience heart disease and present to hospital with symptoms suggestive of a heart attack. 

Unfortunately, access to time critical specialist review and treatment at onset of a heart attack can be delayed in smaller regional health services. This can affect access to best practice care and places residents at risk of poorer health outcomes. 

This collaborative project looks to pilot a streamlined model of care to facilitate rapid access to medical specialist input to support urgent care centre (UCC) staff. This will be achieved through two key streams of work:

1. Designing and piloting a specialist-led chest pain telemedicine service to support UCC managing patients presenting with chest pain or other symptoms suggestive of a heart attack.
2. Explore and trial an IT solution that facilitates secure and efficient sharing of digital ECGs to allow for timely and efficient ECG interpretation.

We are looking to recruit:

• one large (metro or regional) public health service to lead the design and pilot the UCC chest pain telemedicine service for up to 10 months
• up to 10 UCCs to act as pilot sites. 

Outcomes

• To improve the timely access to specialist medical assessment for the triage, management and escalation of care of patients presenting to UCCs with chest pain and/or other symptoms potentially suggestive of a heart attack.
• To reduce potentially avoidable transfers by identifying low-risk patients who are safe to be discharged home with GP follow up. 

Read more about how to apply.

Related projects

This project is part of the Care closer to home package, along with:

• Digital cardiac rehab 
• Rapid access atrial fibrillation clinics
• Stroke support centres