Heart breakthrough: New Zealand develops global-first rapid heart-attack test

A breakthrough global-first bedside test that can diagnose heart attacks in minutes instead of hours is being rolled out across New Zealand hospitals.

Research for the single blood test, which will see patients treated quicker and save the creaking health system millions, was led by emergency doctors at Christchurch Hospital.

It was hailed today as “ground-breaking” by Health Minister Andrew Little who witnessed the bedside blood test in action.

“Clearly, this is good for patients – those who can go home instead of spending hours in hospital worrying they are having heart attacks, and those who actually are having heart attacks and get the treatment they need sooner,” Little said during the new test’s official launch at Waipapa, Christchurch Hospital.

The “high-precision” bedside blood test is said to be as precise as a laboratory test.

Doctors can tell within eight minutes whether a person turning up at ED with chest pain is having a heart attack.

“But it’s also good for the health system,” Little said.

“Sending people home within an hour of arrival takes pressure off the hospital and frees an ED bed up for someone else.”

Health Minister Andrew Little. Photo / File

The research team, led by Dr Martin Than, has been working for a decade on finding better ways of diagnosing heart attacks.

Their methods won a prestigious global healthcare award in 2020 and are now being used in other hospitals across the country, where they have reduced the median stay of cardiac patients in ED by three hours and saved the health system an estimated $50 million to $70 million.

“Chest pain and symptoms of possible heart attack are one of the most common reasons for attending emergency departments,” Than said.

“And as you know, emergency departments at the moment are very busy and overcrowded. At any one point in time, up to a quarter of our beds might be occupied with patients we are assessing for heart attack, and that involves a test […] which can take, sometimes one to two hours to come back.

“We will be the first place in the world to use a seven-and-a-half minute test in the ED, with the same precision as the main test that we have in the laboratory.”

The iCare-Faster project (improving Care by Faster risk-Stratfication in the Emergency Department) was awarded $1.15m from the Government’s Health Research Council in 2019, but work was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Now, however, Christchurch Hospital ED is the first in the world to start using the fast, high-precision bedside troponin blood test.

And from February, 10 more hospitals – Whangārei, North Shore, Waitakere, Waikato, Rotorua, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Wellington, Nelson and Timaru – will roll out it.

“If successful, this technology offers huge benefits for New Zealanders right across New Zealand,” Little said.

“The changes we’ve made to the health system, bringing 20 district health boards together into one organisation, mean it’s easier to spread great ideas like this to other parts of the country, including rural areas, where being able to be treated close to home will be a real benefit.”