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Cardiac (non-arrest)
Mapping chest pain risk tools in ambulance care
Chest pain risk-stratification tools used or trialled in Ambulance Health Service settings: A Scoping Review
Paramedicine · 2026-11-07 · Added 8 November 2026
A scoping review of 27 articles mapped eight chest-pain risk-stratification tools used or trialled in ambulance settings, finding the HEART score and derivatives most studied but with varying and incomplete validation for ambulance use.
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Design
- Scoping review (JBI methodology, PRISMA-ScR)
- Participants
- 27 articles, 8 risk-stratification tools
- Main finding
- Eight chest-pain risk-stratification tools were used or trialled in ambulance settings; HEART and its derivatives were the most frequently studied, with performance varying across settings and validation for ambulance use incomplete
- Caveat
- Scoping review — descriptive mapping only, no pooled performance estimates
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (Medium relevance). Safely triaging chest pain without transport is an active question for Australian ambulance services, but the tools reviewed are mostly hospital-derived and inconsistently validated for prehospital use.
Learning goal
Compare chest pain risk-stratification tools and their validity for prehospital use to strengthen my cardiac triage decisions.
More
- Topic: Cardiac (non-arrest)
- Daily scan: 8 November 2026
- Podcast: Paramedic Papers Daily, 8 November 2026
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