Researchers at UMC Utrecht, Tilburg University and Amsterdam UMC received a 300,000 euro grant from ZonMw to improve diagnosis and treatment in women with possible heart disease. The researchers will further develop a decision aid to help women with heart complaints to go to the general practitioner on time and to support them in the conversation with the general practitioner. In addition, the researchers will bring a software decision aid to practice that helps determine whether additional imaging tests are needed.
In the Netherlands, 36,000 people, half of whom are women, die each year from cardiovascular disease. Many women experience symptoms for which it is unclear whether they are a manifestation of heart disease. It is sometimes difficult for them to decide when to contact a general practitioner. It is a challenge for the family physician and cardiologist to decide who can be sent home with peace of mind. Unfortunately, because the symptoms in women are not always clear, the correct diagnosis is still regularly missed or takes too long to be made.
“In the IMPRESS+ study, we are investigating how to improve diagnosis and treatment in women with possible heart complaints,” explains Saskia Haitjema, physician-researcher at UMC Utrecht. “My colleagues in Tilburg and Amsterdam are going to further develop a decision aid to help women with heart complaints to go to the general practitioner on time and to support them in the conversation with the general practitioner. In our research, we are looking at how we can best add the decision aid-by-complaints to existing information websites.”
In addition, the researchers in Utrecht are bringing a gender-specific software decision aid to practice. Haitjema: “This decision aid helps during the ‘joint decision’ in the cardiologist’s office to determine whether additional imaging studies are necessary. We are implementing the software in the UMC Utrecht and studying the experiences of patients and cardiologists. Based on this, we are perfecting the software and making this medical tool ready for further rollout in other hospitals. We are very excited about the possibilities of digital health for this patient group.”
The decision aid was developed through a successful hackathon at UMC Utrecht on 6808 patients who underwent coronary angiography. “Diagnosis in women with possible heart disease is a challenge. Currently, many expensive, time-consuming and patient-burdensome imaging studies take place, the results of which, however, are overwhelmingly negative. The decision aid can be used to support the joint decision of cardiologist and patient whether or not, after the usual diagnostics, to perform additional imaging studies to rule out a cause of the cardiac symptoms.”
The researchers are working with the start-up MEDxAI to further develop the software. Tjebbe Tauber, CEO MEDxAI), “Valorization is an important theme at UMC Utrecht. As a start-up we fit in well with this with our ambition to bring this software to the consulting room. The hackathon was a wonderfully inspiring week, but you only make a real impact when this decision aid is used in regular care.”
IMPRESS is a Dutch consortium led by Professor Hester den Ruijter of UMC Utrecht and Professor Eric Boersma of Erasmus Medical Center. It was founded in 2020 to better research cardiovascular disease in women, to pool, disseminate and implement existing knowledge about cardiovascular disease in women. The IMPRESS consortium is part of the Dutch CardioVascular Alliance (DCVA). In the DCVA, 22 research and healthcare organizations have joined forces to accelerate solutions for cardiovascular diseases. In addition to the Dutch Heart Foundation, ZonMw is now also involved in funding IMPRESS.
