Atrial fibrillation (AF) is an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. AF is included in QOF and it is important practices are recording activity for this purpose and for patient care.
To make recording and searching this information easier, Ardens has created various AF resources. The following support article will outline what is available.
Recording Information on the Management of AF Patients
The Ardens Atrial Fibrillation template has been designed to standardise consultations, ensuring clinicians are following the latest national guidelines and recording accurate coding of data. It is helpful for recording the latest contract requirements and completing a structured review.
To locate the Ardens Atrial Fibrillation Template, access the relevant patient record. Open a new consultation and select the Run Template option (if not in consultations, click on the Add button on the EMIS ribbon, followed by Data Using Template option).
This will open the Template Picker screen. If you have accessed any templates before, these will display to the left of the screen. Search for the template by typing “AF” in the search box.
This will return the Atrial Fibrillation - AF (Ardens) template (alternatively select the Ardens > Clinical Templates > Cardiology templates folder to the right of the screen).
All the Ardens templates follow the latest NICE guidance and best practice information. This template includes:
- National Contracts (QOF/IIF) page for capturing QOF/IIF requirements.
- History/Exam page to record history and examination data including smoking status.
- Alcohol screening page to record Audit C and FAST scoring.
- Investigations & Scores page to document requests for investigations such as ECG, chest X-ray and record scores such as CHA2DS2-Vasc and bleeding risk assessment.
- Estimated Creatinine Clearance page to calculate Estimated Creatinine Clearance using the Cockcroft Gault formula.
- Management page to document advice and management.
- Referrals page to record signposting and referrals.
- Review Completion and Recall page providing the ability to document an annual or interim review has been completed (necessary if using the Ardens LTC Recall System) and to record a diary date for future DOAC review or annual AF review – this will link to the Ardens Diary Recall System.
- Resources & Messaging page providing helpful links to information for patients and professionals and information on QOF indicators.
- Template Info/Learning Points page providing template information and instructions for use, NICE copyright information and links to appraisal toolkits to enable recording of learning.
Within the National Contracts page, if the indicator has NOT been achieved for this financial year, there will be a red cross and red writing will denote action needed.
However, if the indicator has been achieved there will be a green tick and the writing will no longer be red.
Please note - the above only applies to the National Contracts page, all other contract information on additional pages will be displayed in red and/or denoted by an asterix (*).
For patients presenting with multiple long term conditions, you may wish to use the Ardens Multi-Morbidity templates.
Ardens AF Searches
There are various searches that might be useful for the management of AF patients:
- Prescribing Monitoring Searches - drug monitoring searches to ensure the correct tests are completed.
- Chronic Disease Risk Stratification Searches - searches to help practices focus on chronic disease reviews on higher risk patients and to pro-actively prioritise patients.
- Condition Reports - a suite of searches to help practices monitor activity, alerts, case finders, performance indicators and register information for various conditions.
- Ardens Case Finders - contains a suite of searches to support practices to improve data quality and ensure QOF payments are correctly calculated for your AF patients.
Other Useful Areas
If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: support-emis@ardens.org.uk