Heart Failure Early Follow Up Clinic

Clinical service overview

Patients are referred to this clinic from their hospital clinician after an inpatient stay.

All patients are seen within 7-10 days of discharge and this single visit provides patients with a comprehensive assessment of multiple medical issues, the opportunity to review and uptitrate heart failure therapy, provide follow up education and ensure patients are linked in with community based services.

Patient care is multidisciplinary and referrals are made to appropriate allied health including Hospital Admission Risk Program (HARP), dietitian and Cardiac Rehabilitation.

We work closely with GP’s to ensure ongoing patient care needs are supported and medications are further uptitrated as per established guidelines. The clinic visit ensures streamlined transitional care before returning to ongoing care by the GP and specialist as appropriate. Prompt communication is provided to the GP and specialist post review.

If your patient has attended our clinic and you would like further information, please contact the Heart Failure Nurse via The Alfred switchboard, on (03) 9076 2000.

Refer your patient

Internal referrals only

Your patient must speak with their treating Alfred Health unit (doctor, nurse or allied health practitioner). This team member can then refer the patient to the clinic to make an appointment.

Clinic times

Day	Campus	Time
Wednesday	The Alfred	9.00am - 1.00pm

Clinic consultants

Dr Shane Nanayakkara: Cardiology
A/Prof Ingrid Hopper: General Medicine

MBS-billed service

On the doctor’s behalf, Alfred Health can bulk bill the cost of the consultation for some services through Medicare. This means there is no out of pocket expense to the patient.

MBS-billed services require a current referral. Provide your patient with a 12 month referral to see the specialist of your choice at the requested clinic.

Referrals must be addressed to a named specialist or the Head of service, listed at the top of this page. Clinic consultants are listed on every clinic page.

Note that from time to time, your patient may be seen by another specialist in the clinic, in order to expedite their treatment.