Research question: What is the median duration of the diagnostic phase for new heart failure cases within the AWH-ANHA routine primary care database?

Description: Heart failure (HF) is among the leading causes of cardiovascular morbidity and loss of quality of life. Prediction models for new ('incident') HF that use free text from electronic health record (EHR) data often blind the last 3 months before a HF diagnosis, in order not to feed the algorithm with EHR text information relating to the diagnostic phase of HF (between the patient presenting for symptoms and the final diagnosis e.g. per echocardiogram). In this project, the student will investigate in-depth what the diagnostic phase of HF looks like in Dutch primary care, and what the duration of the diagnostic phase is for HF using the AWH-ANHA routine primary care EHR database. The student will review free text from AWH-ANHA patients with newly diagnosed HF, describing the duration of the diagnostic phase, a swell as the course of action among GPs (type and number of diagnostic investigations leading up to a HF diagnosis).

For more information, contact Dr. Jelle Himmelreich: [email protected]