Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Foundation Trust is working in collaboration with Hillingdon local pharmacy committee and clinical commissioning group on a pharmacy-based atrial fibrillation (AF) screening programme.
It involves targeted screening of people aged over 65 for AF using a Kardia monitor (a handheld ECG monitor).
The project
This study is an extension to a proof of concept study carried out in 2016 and funded by The Health Foundation which successfully showed that community pharmacists are ideally placed to identify AF using a Kardia monitor and using a bespoke AF – Medicines Use Review (MUR) on the PharmOutcomes database.
In the study, 10 community pharmacies in the Hillingdon area were recruited and screened just under 600 patients using the Kardia monitor. Patients who were identified with undiagnosed/suboptimal AF control were referred directly to the arrhythmia team at Harefield Hospital for management. There were 15 patients with undiagnosed AF referred and this demonstrated that community pharmacists are able to use innovative technology to identify patients in the community that were not previously known to have AF.
Funding
Funding has been received from Pfizer in collaboration with the local Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) to enable upscaling of the project. The aim of the project is to increase the number of pharmacies in Hillingdon CCG able to deliver the Capture AF service and to collect robust data to support the long-term, national provision of the service. Additionally this extension study will focus on improving adherence to new medicines (mainly anticoagulation) by utilising the New Medicines Service (NMS).
Award-winning
The Capture AF project has won a number of awards, including:
- the Heart Rhythm Alliance Healthcare Pioneers award in 2017. You can read more about the project and the case study that won the award in the full publication.
- NHS Digital Innovation award at the Clinical Pharmacy Congress (June 2017)
- case study featured in the RPS long terms conditions report
- poster presented at the American Heart Association Conference, New Orleans (October 2016)
- a Chemist and Druggist award for Health Initiative of the Year.
Read the full article of the project's win.
What's next
If you are a pharmacy in the Hillingdon area and would like to find out more, you can contact Zainab Khanbhai.
You can also find out more about the project on Twitter with #CaptureAF and read the latest update in Chemist and Druggist. The Pharmacist have also covered this project on their website.
The Capture AF team
The team:
- Sally Manning
- Zainab Khanbhai
- Dr Wajid Hussain
- Rikin Patel, Sharmans Pharmacy
Sally and Zainab led the development and implementation of the initial Capture AF proof of concept study and have now been awarded funding to continue to upscale the Capture AF service. Dr Hussain is the lead cardiologist involved in the service.
Useful links
If you want to know more about arrhythmia, here are some helpful organisations and websites: