Public help to invest in new state of the art cardiac equipment

Sarah Saunderson • Published 5 Aug 2010 16:30 0 Comments

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Patient Samuel Beavers, Fivemiletown, undergoing an echo cardiogram ultrasound, with Professor Mahen Varma and Jayne Vance, cardiac physiologist.<

Public donations to the Erne Hospital Cardiac Fund helped in the investment of £190,000 in new cardiology services equipment at the Erne Hospital.

While funding secured from the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety helped to realise the investment, Professor Mahen Varma, consultant physician and caridiologist, and the cardiology team expressed their gratitude to the public for their generous support to the Fund which assisted in new equipment being put in place for the benefit of patients.

A total of £125,000 has been invested in the installation of a new echo cardiogram ultrasound machine in the Cardiac Investigations Department. While in the Coronary Care Unit, £65,000 has been invested in updating the telemetry system for monitoring coronary care patients. Four new bedside monitors have been installed which are used for patients who are acutely ill and are required to stay in bed.

The new equipment means an improved service for patients, believes Professor Varma.

The new echo cardiogram ultrasound machine is located in the Cardiac Investigations Department. It will help health professionals make a more accurate diagnosis. Patients are waiting up to nine weeks to get tested on this equipment. "This is a state-of-the-art echo cardiogram machine which can measure pressures in the heart. It gives sophisticated images of the heart and you can also measure pressure changes in the heart and gives us greater detail than heretofore. We had been using the same type of machine but it was ten years old and technology moves on. This new machine will help us make a more accurate diagnosis.

"The demand is so great at the moment there can be a waiting time of up to nine weeks to get this test done which nowadays is standard routing treatment for heart disease.

Our colleagues in Altnagelvin and Omagh can access the pictures directly," said Professor Varma.

The replacement equipment will be used by cardiac physiologist Jayne Vance along with her colleagues Joanne Martin and Christine McDonough and appropriate medical staff, as they carry out ultrasound scans on patients with heart disease or potential cardiac conditions.

Ms. Vance said: "The benefit to patients of the new machine is that the quality of images will be much enhanced due to the advanced technology of the machine and the probe used during scanning with the option to use a 3D-probe facility where appropriate. This assists the medical staff in the diagnosis of a patient's condition. The new equipment also contributes to increased efficiency in the assessment process."

The upgrade of the system also included the provision of 11 ambulatory monitors which a patient can wear as they are moving around. Data from these monitors can be viewed centrally on computer screens at a nurses' station in the Coronary Care Unit assisting in a prompt response to any alert in the patients heart function.

"The coronary care unit has got 12 beds. There are times when beds are full and people are required to be monitored. They can be in another part of the hospital and can be monitored by a central station. The machine monitors the heart rate and rhythm even if they are downstairs or in the geriatric unit. They can be across other sites in the hospital but still plugged into the system. Previous equipment was about 12 years old and it kept breaking down and became obsolete. This is state-of-the-art telemetry equipment and can take 16 patients from around the hospital. There is a built-in alarm system which triggers off if the heart rate falls below 40 or if there is a series of abnormal heartbeats," said Professor Varma.

Sister Valerie McNiffe, ward manager in the Coronary Care Unit, commented: "The upgrade in the monitoring equipment for the Coronary Care Unit means much more assessment can be carried out with less inconvenience and disturbance to the patients. The bedside monitors can be set to check the patient at appropriate intervals of time and can provide much fuller data than the equipment it replaces. This assists in the nursing and medical care of the patient and aids quicker intervention for patients at potential risk of cardiac arrest."

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