FIND-AF
The FIND-AF (Future Innovations in Novel Detection of Atrial Fibrillation) artificial intelligence tool has been developed in LIDA to use information held in primary care to identify people who are at high risk of undiagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF).
The British Heart Foundation and Leeds Hospital Charity have funded Dr Ramesh Nadarajah and Professor Chris P Gale to implement the tool in primary care, to understand whether investigating people at high risk of AF with heart monitors finds more people with AF. The FIND-AF study is currently recruiting across 17 primary care sites in Leeds and Bradford, including in some of the poorest areas of the region. Results from the study are expected in the middle of 2024.
The results of the FIND-AF study will help provide evidence for whether FIND-AF should be used in the NHS to help find people with undiagnosed AF. This is an important problem, as AF causes strokes because clots formed inside the heart break off and go to the brain. Thinning the blood with tablets called oral anticoagulants reduces the chance of stroke. However, it is estimated over 300 000 people are living with undiagnosed AF, which leads to over 15,000 strokes per year in the NHS.
The team have already used funding from the National Institute of Health Research to achieve the regulatory approvals for use of FIND-AF in the NHS, and EMIS (the largest provider of primary care data software used by GPs in the UK) have started the process to make FIND-AF available to their primary care sites.
Work is also underway make FIND-AF available to the general public. Hannah Jackson, Communications Manager at LIDA, and Chris Andrew, Research Software Engineer in the Data Analytics Team, have worked together to form the FIND-AF websites (links), and soon the algorithm could be available over the internet.
Finally, FIND-AF could soon be used in other countries. It has also been validated as highly accurate in over 2 million individuals in Israel, and Professor Chris P Gale and Dr Ramesh Nadarajah are working with Boston Scientific to pilot the use of FIND-AF to improve detection of AF in Brazil.