Ardens has created a variety of resources to assist with identifying patients who may have heart failure, and to support their ongoing management once diagnosed. 


Recording Information on the Management of Heart Failure Patients

The Ardens Heart Failure clinical template has been designed to standardise consultations, ensuring clinicians are following the latest national guidelines and recording accurate coding of data. 

 

To locate the Ardens Heart Failure 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 “heart failure” in the search box.

 

 

This will return the Heart Failure (Ardens) template (alternatively select the Ardens > Chronic disease templates folder to the right of the screen).


All the Ardens Chronic Disease Templates follow the latest NICE guidance and best practice information. They include a QOF page for capturing QOF requirements and Review pages to complete a structured review.

 

Any information displayed in red relates to payment purposes such as QOF, Network Contract DES or local payment. Please note - if the information is relevant for the current financial year, you do not need to duplicate this information. 

 

 

The Initial Diagnosis – History page can be used for recording acute deterioration as well as diagnosis and includes sections for recording typical symptoms and risk factors. 


The Initial Diagnosis – Invstgtns page suggests investigations that should be considered including a section to record specialist referral/result or Echo. Please note - the appropriate diagnosis codes for heart failure can be found within the QOF page.

 

 

All patients with heart failure on the register, should have a review in the preceding 12 months, including an assessment of functional capacity and a review of medication to ensure medicines optimisation at maximum tolerated doses.  The Review pages enable details of this to be captured as well as recording lifestyle, alcohol screening and examination findings.

 

 

The Complications/End-Stage page lists various complications to be considered and common symptoms indicating end-stage heart failure.

 

 

The Review & Recall page enables users to record that the annual or interim review has been completed and to record a future diary date to arrange an interim review – this will link to our Diary Recall System.  For more information on the Diary Recall System, please see our dedicated support article.

 

 

The template contains many helpful links and information including links to NICE guidance within the Management Guidance page and leaflets for your patients within the Patients Resources page.

 

Please note - for patients presenting with multiple long term conditions, you may wish to use the Ardens Multi-Morbidity Templates.

 

Ardens Data Quality Alerts

 The Ardens resources includes Data Quality Alerts to alert practice staff in real time of incorrect coding or missing QOF requirements. These will ensure that you are entering accurate data to include your heart failure patients on the QOF Heart Failure register, whilst also alerting you of missing requirements.


When entering a diagnosis code for heart failure that is not a recognised QOF code, the following data quality alert will be displayed.

 


When entering a heart failure code, you will be alerted if the patient has no echo recorded or referral for echo having been made (within 12 months of diagnosis).

 


Ardens Clinical Safety alerts

The Ardens resources includes Clinical Safety Alerts to flag important MHRA drug safety and NICE guidance information that may be missed. The alerts are triggered on certain activity in the patient record e.g. entering a particular code or prescribing specific drugs.

 

The following alert will be displayed if you are issuing Spironolactone for your heart failure patients and they have not had their U+E bloods measured in the last 6 months.


 

When issuing amiodarone to your heart failure patients, the following alert will notify you if the recommended investigations have not been completed.

 

 

Ardens Heart Failure Searches 

There are various searches that might be useful to support practices with the care of Heart Failure patients:

  • Ardens LTC Recall System - a month of birth recall system, designed to recall a patient for multiple QOF conditions at once.  These searches will ensure your Heart Failure patients are attending their annual review. 
  • Diary Recall System - allows practice staff to easily manage diary recalls for blood tests, injections, procedures, and follow-ups.   
  • Medication Related Searches - medication related searches to support practices with identifying patients on medication that may need extra care or monitoring, including anticoagulants, ACE or ARB.
  • Prescribing Monitoring Searches - searches to assist practices with drug monitoring to ensure the correct tests are completed.
  • Ardens Case Finders - contains a suite of searches to support practices to improve data quality and ensure QOF payments are correctly calculated.
  • Ardens Condition Reports - contains a suite of searches which enables practices to monitor Heart Failure activity for last month, be alerted to potential safety issues and areas of best practice that has not been completed.
  • Ardens Time Sensitive Searches - supports practices with identifying patients for the time limitation indicator for Heart Failure. 


If you require any further assistance on the process above, please contact Ardens support on: [email protected]