Open Access Exercise Electrocardiography: Does it Improve the Management of Cardiovascular Disease in the Community?

Technician run open access exercise electrocardiography

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the safety, efficacy, and feasibility of the technician run open access exercise electrocardiography service at Freeman Hospital.

DESIGN

Questionnaire analysis of the responses of the general practitioners of randomly selected patients who used the service.

SETTING

A tertiary care cardiac centre, providing an open access service to general practitioners in the community.

PATIENTS

269 patients randomly selected from 552 who underwent open access exercise electrocardiography over a 2.5 year period.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Utilisation of service: the reasons for referral, whether the service was optimally used by the general practitioners, and its effect on their management practice; effect on number of cardiology referrals; benefit to the patients; safety, efficacy, and feasibility of a technician run service; general practitioners' assessment of the service.

RESULTS

147 of 178 general practitioners (82.6%) responded to the questionnaire, on 247 of 269 patients (91. 8%). General practitioners used the service for diagnosing ischaemic heart disease in 72.5% of cases, for prognostic purposes in 17.8%, or both in 5.3%. In 197 cases (79.8%), the general practitioners felt that the service had changed the way they managed their patients. The exercise test was positive in 90 patients (36.5%) and identified 38 as at high risk. The service was effective in optimising the cardiology service by reducing referrals by 47%.

CONCLUSIONS

The service was used by general practitioners primarily for diagnosing ischaemic heart disease and not so often for prognosis. The utilisation of the service was optimal as assessed by the high positivity rate. The service meets its primary objective of assisting general practitioners in the management of patients with suspected ischaemic heart disease, and may have helped to optimise resources by reducing the number of referrals to cardiologists. It has helped prioritize patient management and may have benefited high risk patients by facilitating rapid identification and referral. It can be run safely and effectively by trained technicians.

Direct access exercise electrocardiography: a new service that improves the management of suspected ischaemic heart disease in the community

OBJECTIVE

To assess the safety and value of an exercise electrocardiography service for the diagnosis of suspected ischaemic heart disease to which general practitioners have direct access.

DESIGN

Direct access to a hospital exercise electrocardiography service was offered on a trial basis to 122 general practitioners in a defined urban area. Maximal exercise tests were performed according to the modified Bruce protocol and the results were dispatched promptly to the referring doctors who were responsible for the subsequent management of their patients.

SETTING

All general practices in north and west Belfast (combined list size about 180,000) and the regional medical cardiology centre.

PATIENTS

212 request forms were received in a two year period and 192 eligible patients attended for exercise testing. All patients were suspected to have pain due to myocardial ischaemia, were aged < or = 65, and had no contraindications to exercise testing.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Proportion of general practitioners who used the service. Proportion of exercise tests that were positive. Referring doctors' assessment of the service.

RESULTS

43% of general practitioners referred patients and 34 tests (18%) were positive. No complications occurred. The pretest likelihood of ischaemic heart disease, assessed by the referring doctor, was high in 48 (25%), moderate in 82 (43%), and low in 62 (32%). A high pretest likelihood of ischaemic heart disease predicted a positive test result with a sensitivity of 50% and specificity of 80%. General practitioners decided to refer 19 (10%) patients to a hospital cardiology department for further assessment, including 16 of the 34 who had a positive exercise test. In most cases the service was found to be helpful and 97% of patients would have been referred directly to a hospital cardiology clinic if it had not been available.

CONCLUSIONS

Direct access exercise electrocardiography for patients with suspected ischaemic heart disease is safe, feasible, and helpful to general practitioners. This service seems to reduce the number of patients referred to cardiology outpatient clinics and to facilitate the management of these patients in the community.

Open Access Exercise Electrocardiography: A Service to Improve Management of Ischaemic Heart Disease by General Practitioners

An initial study of the use of open access exercise electrocardiography by general practitioners (GPs) in South East Kent showed that patient selection and interpretation of test results was frequently incorrect. After issuing guidelines, modifying the request form and instituting registrar review of all requests, significant improvements in both referral pattern, result interpretation and patient management have resulted.

Forty-nine GPs requested 110 exercise tests during 1988/89. Twelve per cent were not undertaken after discussion with the referring practitioner. Eighty-four per cent of those tested would have been referred to the district general hospital cardiology outpatient department in the absence of open access exercise electrocardiography service. Six per cent of patients were referred directly for invasive investigation. Thirty-five per cent were referred to the district general hospital cardiology outpatient department, whilst 42% were spared hospital referral based on the result of the investigation.

Better use of the modified service was suggested by: Referral of fewer patients with non-cardiac chest pains (P= 0.002); more patients with a moderate pre-test probability of ischaemic heart disease (P<0.05); fewer inappropriate requests (P<0.01); and fewer inappropriately undertaken tests (P< 0.001) than in the previous study. All patients with strongly positive test results were appropriately managed.

Open access exercise electrocardiography in the format investigated is potentially a cost-effective and useful tool to improve diagnosis and management of heart disease bv GPs.