IHAA

Irish Heart Attack Audit

The Irish Heart Attack Audit (IHAA) is clinically led, collecting high quality data on ACS patients admitted to Primary Percutaneous Intervention Centres in Ireland for the purpose of healthcare quality improvement.

Key Findings

2021 Report

A heart attack is a serious medical emergency. This report analysed data on 1491 patients with a serious heart attack, known as a STEMI, over 2021 A key message from the report focuses on the importance of calling 999/112 as soon as someone experiences any symptoms of a heart attack. This ensures that they receive a timely pre-hospital ECG diagnosis of STEMI by ambulance personnel and are then directly transferred to an appropriate PCI centre. Only 44% of patients with a STEMI sought medical help within 60 minutes of onset of their symptoms.

Michael Madigan profile image

Patients

My name is Michael Madigan. I worked as a Clinical Nurse Manager in the Mental Health Service in the NHS and HSE before retiring in 2018 due to heart failure following a heart attack in 2016. I am a member of the National Heart Failure Patient Panel with the Irish Heart Foundation. I told my story at the launch of the first Irish Heart Attack Audit (IHAA) report launch in 2022 and was nominated by the Irish Heart Foundation to join the IHAA Governance Committee in 2023 as a Patient and Public Interest Representative. I am delighted to see the IHAA recommending the need for increased public awareness about the symptoms of heart attack and the need to call 999. I would like to see hospitals improve their referral to cardiac rehabilitation in order to ensure that as many people as possible live life after heart attack to their full potential.

Michael Madigan PPI Representative, IHAA Governance Committee

Resources