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A BSE Accredited Department Member The NHS Confederation |
Echotech Key MessagesFor Delivering QualityEchotech is a BSE Accredited Department The Echotech service complies with key elements in the BSE guidance 'Community Echocardiography for Heart Failure'11 All Echotech Clinical Governance is overseen by our Clinical Lead - Consultant Cardiologist Echocardiography Specialist Hand held echocardiography systems are an accurate and reproducible screening technique for the assessment of LVSD in the community1 Community echocardiography gives comparable results to traditional hospital echocardiography for left ventricular dysfunction and for significant valvular disease detection9 Community echocardiography will secure the local, early and accurate diagnosis of cardiac abnormalities Community echocardiography will allow risk stratification - early identification of those patients requiring specialist assessment Improved access to echocardiography may result in higher rates of optimal pharmacological intervention2 Improved pharmacological intervention (with ACE inhibitors and Beta blockers) will result in decreases in morbidity, mortality and hospital admissions3,4 Echotech delivers a pathway of care designed around patient needs (reduced waiting time to diagnosis, closer to patient's home) Echotech will support healthcare professionals deliver CHD NSF standard 11 and the PPF target (heart failure) and to help implement the NICE guideline for heart failure Echotech will support new GMS contract 'the percentage of patients with a diagnosis of CHD and LV dysfunction which has been confirmed by an echocardiogram' Echotech's service reflects several of the themes in the NHS Next Stage Review. For example, 'All the visions emphasised the importance of rapid access to diagnostics in convenient locations'10 For Delivering ValueThe Echotech pathway represents a saving of 61.2% over the Traditional Consultant Outpatient pathway, and a saving of 11.1% over the Hospital-based Open Access Model13 Echotech depolys single Echo 'units', equipment and staff, across institutional boundaries and therefore allows resources to be shared between commissioning organisations Echotech's tariff per scan is substantially less than the NHS 'non-mandatory' price for an echo14 Community echocardiography has a significant sparing effect on specialist referrals (increase NHS capacity)5,6 Approximately 60% of people referred directly for specialist assessment are not subsequently diagnosed with heart failure12 Community echocardiography provides a more efficient 'lean' method of working via reduced inappropriate secondary care attendances, reduction in outpatient appointments and more efficient and appropriate use of specialist teams Open access echocardiography allows avoidance of inappropriate treatment7 Echotech service is highly responsive to the evolving NHS and reflects several recent Department of Health policy developments. For example, Payment by Results, Practice Based Commissioning and the 18 Week RTT Target The most cost effective strategy to screen for LVSD in community subjects is natriuretic peptide or ECG pre screening prior to hand held echocardiography prior to traditional echocardiography8 Echotech service model allows Cardiology online access to reports and images 1. R Senior, G Galasko, J V McMurray, J Mayet. Heart 2003;89(Suppl III):iii24-iii28
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