About the project

The Acute Rheumat­ic Fever and Rheumat­ic Heart Dis­ease Project is a statewide ini­tia­tive to improve care for peo­ple liv­ing with or at risk of acute rheumat­ic fever (ARF) and rheumat­ic heart dis­ease (RHD) across South Australia.

The project brings togeth­er clin­i­cians, health ser­vices, pub­lic health teams, Abo­rig­i­nal health part­ners and health sys­tem lead­ers. Togeth­er, they are look­ing at how peo­ple with ARF and RHD are iden­ti­fied, mon­i­tored and supported.

The project aims to strength­en the sys­tems that sup­port ARF and RHD care and improve con­ti­nu­ity of care for peo­ple liv­ing with these conditions.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty

Peo­ple with ARF and RHD often need long-term care from more than one health service.

When infor­ma­tion is dif­fi­cult for clin­i­cians to access, ser­vices are not well con­nect­ed or ARF and RHD are not iden­ti­fied and reg­is­tered appro­pri­ate­ly, there can be gaps in care.

The Acute Rheumat­ic Fever and Rheumat­ic Heart Dis­ease Project pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to:

• improve access to time­ly and accu­rate infor­ma­tion for health­care providers
• strength­en com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion between health services
• reduce the risk of peo­ple miss­ing fol­low-up care
• increase iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion of peo­ple with ARF and RHD
• sup­port con­sis­tent, high-qual­i­ty care.

Our approach

The project is explor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve how peo­ple with ARF and RHD are iden­ti­fied, sup­port­ed and con­nect­ed to care across South Australia.

The project is focused on three key areas:

• strength­en­ing ear­li­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and reg­is­tra­tion across the health system
• improv­ing clin­i­cian access to patient infor­ma­tion and clin­i­cal deci­sion support
• devel­op­ing more con­sis­tent approach­es to fol­low-up and care coordination.

Part­ners

The work is being devel­oped in part­ner­ship with the Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­ease Con­trol Branch’s RHD Pro­gram team, clin­i­cians, health ser­vices and key stakeholders.

Our focus

The project will aim to:

• sup­port improve­ments to process­es for iden­ti­fy­ing and reg­is­ter­ing peo­ple with ARF and RHD on the South Aus­tralian Rheumat­ic Heart Dis­ease Register
• improve the qual­i­ty, acces­si­bil­i­ty and vis­i­bil­i­ty of patient infor­ma­tion for clinicians
• strength­en com­mu­ni­ca­tion and coor­di­na­tion path­ways between health ser­vices involved in ARF and RHD care
• explore oppor­tu­ni­ties to improve fol­low-up and care coordination
• enhance the use of data and insights to sup­port qual­i­ty improve­ment and bet­ter patient outcomes.

Ques­tions?

To learn more about the Acute Rheumat­ic Fever and Rheumat­ic Heart Dis­ease Project, email CEIH.RheumaticFever@sa.gov.​au.