“The exciting part of this is we are using two different forms of artificial intelligence that helps us do what we could not do before.”
Professor Stewart said practice nurses would be trained to use the new technology, which uses a small probe to identify the structure of the heart and maps it out to determine if it is pumping and relaxing properly, before it is analysed.
“It’s a one-stop shop for imaging the heart and then getting a report so the GP and the healthcare team can decide what to do to protect the heart health of that person,” he said.
Funded by the Medical Research Future Fund of Australia, two other teams will work at Salisbury, and at Daylesford and Kyneton.
“These are three very different communities, all with their challenges, but all with people who have probably got problems with the heart that we don’t know about yet,” Professor Stewart said.
“Once we find someone with a problem with the heart, we’ll talk to them and then offer them the chance to go into this trial.”
Lister House Medical Clinic chief executive Amanda Wilson said people in the community who were interested in participating in the program were welcome to register their interest.
“At the moment we’re hoping people are going to come and just be guinea pigs for us, so we can get our skills up and then move into the next phase of putting participants into the study,” she said.
“Anyone can come in – they don’t have to have heart concerns, or be pre-existing patients at Lister House.”
Professor Stewart said following the initial stages of training and skill-building, the second part of the program would see more specific criteria applied.
“We will look for people who are over 60 years old and have a pre-existing condition like diabetes, hypertension or any form of heart disease,” he said.
“Prevention is better than cure, and that’s what all this program is about.
“It’s a national program and I can guarantee there’s no one else in the world doing it the way we are, so we’re really excited. The results are going to be fantastic.”
Mrs Wilson said the program would include factors such as gender, environmental heat effects, workplaces and lifestyle.
“It will provide other ways of looking at occupational health and safety for people moving forward as well,” she said. “The Wimmera is known for its cardiovascular risk factors – we have a really high relationship with cardiovascular disease here.
“I did a study about 25 years ago actually looking at that, and we’re still trying to work out what the prevalence is and why.”
Mrs Wilson said nurse practitioner Jo Marchesini and lead nurses Casey Kosch and Sharon Hedt would lead the program.
“We’re really excited that we have such skilled nurses in our community and that they’re doing something that’s groundbreaking and going to have papers and studies written about it and what it looks like,” she said.
Lister House Medical Clinic general practitioner, principal and clinical lead David Wilson said the technology would allow for early intervention.
“It’s all about picking things up before people get a problem and getting early intervention to make their lives better,” he said.
“We are looking at recruiting about 400 people over the course of the study, so it’ll need a lot of community involvement, and there’s no cost to the patient.”
People can call Lister House Medical Clinic on 5382 0011 for more information or to register interest in participating in the program.
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