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Contact the study team using the details below to take part. If there are no contact details below please ask your doctor in the first instance.
Miss
Laura
Blair
laura.blair@neas.nhs.uk
Chris
Wilkinson
Chris.Wilkinson@hyms.ac.uk
Cerebrovascular diseasesOther forms of heart disease
This information is provided directly by researchers, and we recognise that it isn't always easy to understand. We are working with researchers to improve the accessibility of this information. In some summaries, you may come across links to external websites. These websites will have more information to help you better understand the study.
Atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF) are common heart rhythm problems which significantly increase a person’s risk of stroke. This risk can be reduced with treatment (oral anticoagulation medication). However, many people have AF and no symptoms that bring their AF to the attention of a doctor. This means that they are not on treatment, and so remain at risk of stroke.
Ambulance clinicians can identify AF using a heart trace (electrocardiogram, ECG). We have previously shown that they often identify AF by chance as part of their assessments – but no ambulance service in the UK has a robust system for ensuring that this finding is passed on to the general practitioner (GP) for review and follow up. Currently, individual clinicians contact GPs directly to let them know when AF is identified, which is not always possible and can take time. We have spoken with patients, GPs, paramedics and system leaders who reported that a better process is needed, which should be tested to check that it works.
In partnership with ambulance clinicians and GPs, we have developed a new tool within the existing ambulance electronic patient care record so that we can automatically send a letter to the GP, with the ECG attached, for patients in whom incidental AF is detected - and train ambulance clinicians on how to use it.
After the function has been activated we will check how often it is used – and whether or not the GP record has been updated with the AF diagnosis and if appropriate medication was then prescribed. Data from comparator patients in the year before the intervention was live will also be analysed.
If the tool is effective, national roll-out would be facilitated by the fact that many ambulance services use the same, or similar, electronic patient record systems.
Start dates may differ between countries and research sites. The research team are responsible for keeping the information up-to-date.
The recruitment start and end dates are as follows:
Observational type: Cohort study;
You can take part if:
You may not be able to take part if:
Patients who have 'opted out' of the use of health records for evaluation purposes will be excluded by the NEAS informatics team. This will be further checked by NECS. Patients that were part of the notification system will have given their study-specific individual consent, so could still be included in this data, even if they have opt outs recorded.
Below are the locations for where you can take part in the trial. Please note that not all sites may be open.
The study is sponsored by NORTH EAST AMBULANCE SERVICE NHS FOUNDATION TRUST and funded by BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION .
Your feedback is important to us. It will help us improve the quality of the study information on this site. Please answer both questions.
Read full details
for Trial ID: CPMS 70282
You can print or share the study information with your GP/healthcare provider or contact the research team directly.
