Publications by authors named "Tom Briffa"

Background: Clinical work-up for suspected cardiac chest pain is resource intensive. Despite expectations, high-sensitivity cardiac troponin assays have not made decision making easier. The impact of recently validated rapid triage protocols including the 0-hour/1-hour hs-cTn protocols on care and outcomes may be limited by the heterogeneity in interpretation of troponin profiles by clinicians.

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Background: Psychosocial well-being and nutritional counselling are important components of cardiac rehabilitation endorsed by national and international guidelines. However, both areas can be complex for cardiac rehabilitation practitioners to navigate. This study aimed to examine whether practitioners have implemented standardised program content for psychosocial well-being and healthy eating and explore attitudes to these components.

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Background: With widespread adoption of high-sensitivity troponin assays, more individuals with myocardial injury are now identified, with type 1 myocardial infarction (T1MI) being less common despite having the most well-established evidence base to inform care. This study assesses the temporal time course of cardiovascular events among various forms of myocardial injury.

Method: Consecutive hospital encounters were identified.

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Introduction: Cardiac rehabilitation is known to reduce morbidity and improve quality of life in people living with heart disease, however, adherence, access and completion of these programmes is suboptimal. Peer support may offer an opportunity to close this service gap. The aim of the study is to determine whether the effectiveness of a digital peer support programme for people living with heart disease is effective in improving social connectedness, clinical and patient-reported outcomes and experience measures.

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Background: Switching from a conventional to a high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) assay enables detection of smaller amounts of myocardial damage, but the clinical benefit is unclear. We investigated whether switching to a hs-cTnI assay with a sex-specific 99th centile diagnostic threshold was associated with lower 1-year death or new myocardial infarction (MI) in patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

Methods: This pre-post study included nine tertiary hospitals in Australia.

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Background The study aimed to understand the acceptability, satisfaction, uptake, utility and feasibility of a quality improvement (QI) intervention to improve care for coronary heart disease (CHD) patients in Australian primary care practices and identify barriers and enablers, including the impact of COVID-19. Methods Within the QUality improvement for Effectiveness of care for people Living with heart disease (QUEL) study, 26 Australian primary care practices, supported by five Primary Health Networks (PHN) participated in a 1-year QI intervention (November 2019 - November 2020). Data were collected from practices and PHNs staff via surveys and semi-structured interviews.

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Purpose: Measures of disease burden using hospital administrative data are susceptible to over-inflation if the patient is transferred during their episode of care. We aimed to identify and compare measures of coronary heart disease (CHD) and myocardial infarction (MI) episodes using six algorithms that account for transfers.

Patient And Methods: We used person-linked hospitalisations for CHD and MI for 2000-2016 in Western Australia based on the interval between discharge and subsequent admission (date, datetime algorithms), pathway (admission source, discharge destination) and any combination to generate machine learning models (random forest [RF], gradient boosting machine [GBM]).

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Background: Chest pain is a common cause of presentation to the emergency department (ED), and its outcomes are affected by various diagnostic tests and timely management. Our aim was to identify determinants of invasive coronary angiography (ICA) in a chest pain cohort following ED presentation, and to compare outcomes by time to ICA.

Methods: We identified all adults aged ≥20 years presenting with chest pain to public teaching hospital EDs in Perth, Western Australia, from 1 January 2016 to 31 March 2017.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study examines how the definition of myocardial infarction (MI) has changed since 2000, particularly focusing on the role of cardiac troponin tests in classifying acute coronary syndrome (ACS) subtypes using hospital data from Western Australia.
  • Researchers analyzed hospital admission data and linked biomarker results for patients diagnosed with STEMI, NSTEMI, and unstable angina (UA) over a 14-year period, from 2002 to 2016.
  • The findings reveal that trends in MI classifications from biomarker results matched those in ICD-coded data for STEMI and NSTEMI, showing a decline in STEMI rates and an initial increase in NSTEMI before a subsequent decline, while UA rates steadily decreased
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Background: Clinical work-up for suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is resource intensive.

Objectives: This study aimed to develop a machine learning model for digitally phenotyping myocardial injury and infarction and predict 30-day events in suspected ACS patients.

Methods: Training and testing data sets, predominantly derived from electronic health records, included suspected ACS patients presenting to 6 and 26 South Australian hospitals, respectively.

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Article Synopsis
  • Major advancements in medical and surgical treatment for cardiovascular disease (CVD) over the past century have led to improved survival rates and shorter hospital stays, increasing the need for ongoing cardiovascular risk management.
  • Despite these advancements, post-discharge care often relies on outdated rehabilitation models that don't adequately address the long-term needs of survivors living with CVD.
  • The paper advocates for reframing cardiac rehabilitation into a broader concept of supporting cardiovascular health through the "5 P's": personalization, processes, patient-centered care, parlance, and partnership, to better engage survivors and improve their outcomes.
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Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of deaths and disability worldwide. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) effectively reduces the risk of future cardiac events and is strongly recommended in international clinical guidelines. However, CR program quality is highly variable with divergent data systems, which, when combined, potentially contribute to persistently low completion rates.

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Background: This study evaluates primary care practices' engagement with various features of a quality improvement (QI) intervention for patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) in four Australian states.

Methods: Twenty-seven practices participated in the QI intervention from November 2019 -November 2020. A combination of surveys, semi-structured interviews and other materials within the QUality improvement in primary care to prevent hospitalisations and improve Effectiveness and efficiency of care for people Living with heart disease (QUEL) study were used in the process evaluation.

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Background: Aortic valve replacement in asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis is controversial. The Early valve replacement in severe ASYmptomatic Aortic Stenosis (EASY-AS) trial aims to determine whether early aortic valve replacement improves clinical outcomes, quality of life and cost-effectiveness compared to a guideline recommended strategy of 'watchful waiting'.

Methods: In a pragmatic international, open parallel group randomized controlled trial (NCT04204915), 2844 patients with severe aortic stenosis will be randomized 1:1 to either a strategy of early (surgical or transcatheter) aortic valve replacement or aortic valve replacement only if symptoms or impaired left ventricular function develop, or other cardiac surgery becomes nessessary.

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Aims: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) have a higher risk of ischaemic stroke and death. While anticoagulants are effective at reducing these risks, they increase the risk of bleeding. Current clinical risk scores only perform modestly in predicting adverse outcomes, especially for the outcome of death.

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Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among cancer survivors. Mental health is considered an important risk factor affecting the treatment of cardiovascular disease. However, little is known about the use of secondary prevention strategies for CVD in patients with both cancer and CVD.

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Background: Adults <55 years of age comprise a quarter of all acute coronary syndromes (ACS) hospitalisations. There is a paucity of data characterising this group, particularly sex differences. This study aimed to compare the clinical and risk profile of patients with ACS aged <55 years with older counterparts, and measure short-term outcomes by age and sex.

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Background: Multimorbidity is strongly associated with disability or functional decline, poor quality of life and high consumption of health care services. This study aimed (1) To identify patterns of multimorbidity among patients undergoing first recorded percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI); (2) To explore the association between the identified patterns of multimorbidity on length of hospital stay, 30-day and 12- month risk of major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) after PCI.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of the Melbourne Interventional Group (MIG) registry.

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Aims: This study aimed to determine total and cardiovascular-specific re-hospitalisation patterns and associated costs within 2 years of index atrial fibrillation (AF) admission in Western Australia (WA).

Method: Patients aged 25-94 years, surviving an index (first-in-period) AF hospitalisation (principal diagnosis) from 2011 to 2015 were identified from WA-linked administrative data and followed for 2 years. Person-level hospitalisation costs ($ Australian dollar) were computed using the Australian Refined Diagnosis Related Groups and presented as median with first and third quartile costs.

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Purpose: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting over 523 million people globally. Atherosclerotic diseases, particularly ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the primary mediators of CVD burden and trends, with half of CVD deaths attributed to IHD, and another quarter to ischemic stroke. The aim of this review was to provide an overview of world-wide trends in the burden of atherosclerotic CVD.

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Background: Lack of service data for cardiac rehabilitation limits understanding of program delivery, benchmarking and quality improvement. This study aimed to describe current practices, management, utilisation and engagement with quality indicators in Australian programs.

Method: Cardiac rehabilitation programs (n=396) were identified from national directories and networks.

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Background: The impacts of high sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) reporting on downstream interventions amongst suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in the emergency department (ED), especially amongst those with newly identified hs-cTn elevations and in consideration of well-established sex-related disparities, has not been critically evaluated to date. This investigation explores the impact of hs-cTnT reporting on care and outcomes, particularly by participant sex.

Methods: Two similarly ED-based randomized controlled trials conducted between July 2011 to March 2013 (n = 1988) and August 2015 to April 2019 (n = 3378) were comparatively evaluated.

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Background: Genetic heart diseases such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can cause significant morbidity and mortality, ranging from syncope, chest pain, and palpitations to heart failure and sudden cardiac death. These diseases are inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion, meaning family members of affected individuals have a 1 in 2 chance of also inheriting the disease ("at-risk relatives"). The health care use patterns of individuals with a genetic heart disease, including emergency department presentations and hospital admissions, are poorly understood.

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Objective: International guidelines provide increasing support for computed tomography coronary angiography (CTCA) in investigating chest pain. A pathway utilising CTCA first-line for outpatient stable chest pain evaluation was implemented in an Australian ED.

Methods: In pre-post design, the impact of the pathway was prospectively assessed over 6 months (August 2021 to January 2022) and compared with a 6-month pre-implementation group (February 2021 to July 2021).

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