Indigenous Cardiac Outreach Program: After A Decade of Service

Abstract

Indigenous Cardiac Outreach Program (ICOP) is an innovative multidisciplinary community-driven and culturally sensitive tertiary specialist program with the aim to ‘close the gap’ of cardiac care in remote and rural Indigenous communities. We describe our comprehensive model of care. Central to the team is the Indigenous team leader who coordinates the delivery of service. Standard tertiary cardiology care is further complemented with its intrinsic capacity to address the burden of chronic diseases by strategic positioning of a dedicated general medicine advanced trainee and a chronic disease nurse practitioner within the team. Our service has 35 clinic sites, catering more than half of Queensland with the land mass area close to 1 million kilometres square. Early data show an encouraging trend of cardiovascular risk factor profiles in our cohort. We believe an inclusive medical care working in harmony with traditional values is key to delivery optimal health care to rural and remote Indigenous communities.