Michael Finucane
Ceist:17 Mr. Finucane asked the Minister for Health and Children the reason the chair of the Coronary Heart Attack Ireland Register has been set up in the Southern Health Board region. [25553/01]
Written Answers. - Departmental Bodies.
The Cardiovascular Health Strategy – Building Healthier Hearts, published in 1999, recommended the development of a pilot study of a register of heart attack patients. It was envisaged that the lessons from this would be used to establish a national hospital based register of coronary care.
Prior to the publication of Building Healthier Hearts the Irish Heart Foundation had already established a CHAIR – coronary heart attack Ireland register – steering group in conjunction with the Southern Health Board and my Department. However, because of operational and detailed issues emerging it was felt best to develop a pilot study on a regional basis before proceeding to national implementation.
Given the broad mix of hospital sites and the population size, the Southern Health Board was invited by the Department of Health and Children to act as the formal pilot site for the CHAIR project in November 1998. The Southern Health Board accepted the invitation. The decision to establish such a pilot project in the Southern Health Board area was taken prior to my appointment as Minister for Health and Children.
Since then discussions with the Southern Health Board have been ongoing and a local steering committee has been established to oversee the pilot. The Southern Health Board has recently recruited a project manager for the CHAIR project in its region.
I recently announced the establishment of the CHAIR national steering committee. Its terms of reference will include responsibility for the management of the CHAIR project at national level by: agreeing the scope of the data to be gathered; agreeing the mechanism for the collection of this data; agreeing the terms for monitoring outcomes and criteria for evaluating the pilot project; taking account of appropriate international data sets and developments relevant to the CHAIR project; and advising on the national roll-out of the CHAIR project to all health boards, assuming its successful implementation according to agreed criteria in the Southern Health Board during the pilot phase.