Waitemata District Health Board has scored lowest in a national check on the proportion of patients suffering a suspected heart attack or serious angina to receive an important test within three days, researchers have found.
The Cardiac Clinical Network, supported by the Health Ministry, established in 2013 a target that 70 per cent of hospitalised patients with a suspected heart attack or serious angina receive invasive coronary angiography -- an imaging test that uses a catheter inserted through a blood vessel, dye and x-rays -- within three days of hospital admission.
Waitemata achieved 57.4 per cent, according to a paper in today's New Zealand Medical Journal based on data on all patients admitted to public hospitals with suspected "acute coronary syndrome" in the 12 months to November 2014.
Waitemata was the only DHB below 70 per cent among the nine health boards that have a hospital with on-site facilities for placing stents to help reopen blocked heart arteries.
The other DHBs below 70 per cent -- Taranaki, Lakes, Tairawhiti, Hawkes Bay, West Coast and South Canterbury -- are among the 11 that do not have a stenting unit, also called an interventional catheterisation lab.