A CANet-funded project is creating Canada’s first set of guidelines for emergency room (ER) physicians that standardize acute atrial fibrillation and flutter (AAFF) treatment across the country, reducing the length of patients’ stay by 21%.
The project has successfully implemented its AAF Best Practices Guidelines into 11 large emergency rooms in five provinces, with plans to be adopted over 1000 sites across Canada.
Most ERs in Canada treat AAFF – abnormally rapid heart rates that have been present for less than seven days and are often disabling to most patients – by using drugs or electricity to help return the heart to its normal ‘sinus’ rhythm. The procedure is known as cardioversion. Patients are usually discharged soon after that.
CANet Investigator Ian Stiell is an ER physician at The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. His ER group has maintained a low admission rate of less than five per cent for many years with an excellent safety record.
Stiell created the treatment guidelines by combining his ER experience and conversations with patients, ER physicians, and cardiologists from rural, community, and academic centres.
“We have seen more and more Canadian ER physicians willing to cardiovert AAFF patients and then discharge them directly home from the ER,” Stiell says. “We want to encourage ER physicians working in small, medium, and large hospitals across Canada to adopt the guidelines.”
By funding his work to help decrease ER admissions for AAFF cases, CANet is helping Stiell take the success story Canada-wide.
His CANet-funded project is currently on a two-year trial to evaluate the effectiveness of the guidelines in 11 Canadian ERs across Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario.
The hope is to ease the pressure from an already over-burdened Canadian healthcare system and reduce ER visits by 30 percent.
Already endorsed by the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, the hope is the guidelines will ease the pressure from an already over-burdened Canadian healthcare system and reduce ER visits by 30 percent.
About CANet
Our Network brings together health care professionals, academia, government, industry, not-for-profit, and patients to support new ideas and ground-breaking cardiac research.
CANet is developing and promoting effective practical solutions for personal, healthcare, and business applications. Our approach is to put the right tools in the right hands at the right time. We want to empower:
- Patients to manage their own health
- Caregivers to improve patient care at the bedside and in the community
- Health care providers to give timely, effective, and efficient services