The Heartbeat programme is an Irish campaign to reduce mortality from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and was set up in late 2005.  Five hospitals volunteered to participate in this programme prior to rollout across the country.  They are:Wexford General Hospital; Letterkenny General;Cork University Hospital; Connolly Memorial Hospital Blanchardstown; and Our Lady of Lourdes Drogheda. 

The vision of the programme is to save lives in Ireland through implementing and assuring best practice in the care of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients using the American Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) methodology to achieve sustainable improvement.

An update on the progress of the Heartbeat Programme between October 2006 and September 2009 is contained in the document Heartbeat: Improving AMI care in Irish hospitals

The IHI approach focuses on eight key components of care - those interventions that are central to reducing morbidity and mortality in patients with AMI: 

1. Early Administration of Aspirin
2. Aspirin at Discharge
3. Early Administration of Beta-Blocker
4. Beta-blocker at Discharge
5. ACE inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARB) at discharge for patients with left   ventricular systolic dysfunction
6. Timely initiation of reperfusion (thrombolysis or percutaneous coronary intervention)
7. Smoking Cessation Counselling
8. Lipid lowering medication on discharge

The programme proposes to achieve this vision by:

• collecting and recording data for the key components of care on ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) patients admitted to hospital
• analyzing the data of all five hospitals
• reporting back to the hospitals their own data as compared to data across all five hospitals
• having each hospital attend to areas that require improvement (as alerted to in the reports)
• continuing the process quarterly

Related Link:

Link to HSE Performance Monitoring Report Jan 08 - Heartbeat  (PDF 83.4KB)