Investigators: Amy Baker, Jonathan Carapetis
Partners: GE Healthcare
Indigenous populations of Australia have amongst the highest documented rates of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the world. One of the main barriers to improving health outcomes from RHD in low-resource remote areas of Western Australia (WA) is the geographical isolation of Indigenous communities, leading to limited access to healthcare and poor resource provision. In particular, Cardiology specialist services are scarce in remote communities, leading to missed or delayed diagnoses and inadequate primary, secondary and tertiary level surveillance.
This project aims to empower local clinicians with skills and knowledge of using handheld echocardiography (HAND) that will allow for mobile service provision into remote Indigenous communities. Through improving the quality of local service provision to patients with RHD, we strive to improve early detection, surveillance, triage and management of patients with ARF and RHD. This has significant potential cost-economic benefits and is a step towards improving the health outcomes of Indigenous Australians.
Aim: To determine the feasibility and impact on quality of care of a health system intervention comprising of a comprehensive training curriculum and implementation of handheld echocardiography (HAND), to improve detection & surveillance of RHD in remote north WA.