New FREE audit tool helps GPs GRASP the initiative in managing heart failure patients

This exciting new audit tool extends the GRASP suite of tools that PRIMIS and NHS Improving Quality have been developing to support GPs to improve their management of long-term conditions. ‘GRASP-HF’ is the third addition to this suite, following on from the original GRASP-AF audit tool and the recently released GRASP-COPD audit tool, both of which are being used by thousands of practices.

GRASP-HF will also enable practices to easily audit their management of patients with heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD) against NICE Clinical Guideline 108; management of chronic heart failure in adults in primary and secondary care. It will also help practices to identify patients with missing diagnosis codes for heart failure, LVSD or both.

GRASP-HF works with the CHART software tool, displaying results in a number of useful ways: a dashboard providing a graphical snapshot of care at practice population level and interactive graphs that enable practices to ‘drill down’ to a datasheet to examine care at individual patient level. As with all of the audits in the GRASP suite of tools, practices can choose to upload their results to CHART Online, where their data can be compared with other practices both locally and nationally.

Use of the three audit tools in the GRASP suite is completely free to practices within England if they sign up to the PRIMIS Hub membership. Anyone that is already a PRIMIS Hub member who has been using either GRASP-AF or GRASP-COPD will automatically be given access to GRASP-HF, which they can download using the CHART update facility. 

Further details on the GRASP-HF audit tool or the GRASP suite of tools can be found here.

Please note: the original release date of this news item was 01/10/13