Cardiac Services

Rapid Access Cardiac Testing

Our team of professionals are on call to provide timely cardiac care. Healthe Heart, our cardiac support service located at Maitland Private Hospital, provides patients with direct access to our service and cardiac specialists - with bulk billing available on a range of investigations such as Stress Echo, Angiogram and Holter Monitors.

What tests do we offer at Healthe Heart Maitland?

• Stress test
  This is also called a treadmill or exercise ECG. This test is done to monitor the heart while you walk on a treadmill or pedal a stationary bike. Your doctor also monitors your breathing and blood pressure. A stress test may be used to detect coronary artery disease, or to determine safe levels of exercise after a heart attack or heart surgery. This test can also be done using special medicines that stress the heart in a similar manner as exercise does. Sometimes a stress test will collect ECG information along with heart ultrasound pictures. This is called an exercise or stress echocardiogram. It is more sensitive and specific than ECG stress testing alone.
• Transthoracic echocardiogram (echo or TTE)
  An echo is a non-invasive test that uses sound waves to evaluate your heart's chambers and valves, and how well it pumps. The echo sound waves create a real time image on the monitor as an ultrasound probe is passed across the skin over your heart.
• Holter monitor at Lingard Private Hospital
  For this test, you wear a small, portable, battery-powered ECG machine. Small patches (wired electrodes) are attached to the skin over your heart. The monitor records heartbeats over a period of 24 to 48 hours during normal activities. At the end of the time period, you will return the monitor to the doctor's office so it can be read and evaluated. Some Holter monitors can be worn for up to 2 weeks.
• Event monitor at Lingard Private Hospital
  For this test, patients wear a small, portable, battery-powered machine used to record ECG over several weeks. Each time you have symptoms, you press a button on the recorder to record the ECG sample. As soon as possible, you will transmit this sample to the doctor's office for evaluation. Other types of event recorders don't use wires. Instead small cards with electrodes on them are placed on the skin over the heart.
• Electrocardiogram (ECG) at Lingard Private Hospital
  This test records the electrical activity of the heart, shows abnormal rhythms (arrhythmias), and can sometimes detect heart muscle damage.
• Cardiac catheterisation (coronary angiogram) at Lingard Private Hospital
  For this test, your doctor guides a small catheter (hollow tube) through the large artery in your upper leg, or sometimes your wrist or arm, into your heart. Dye is given through the catheter, and moving X-ray pictures are made as the dye travels through your heart arteries and heart chambers. This comprehensive test shows - narrowing in the arteries, heart chamber size, how well your heart pumps, and how well the valves open and close, as well as a measurement of the pressures within the heart chambers and arteries and veins.

Speak to your GP for referral to Healthe Heart.
GPs wishing to make a referral can download our editable referral form here.