Illawarra Heart Health Centre - Wollongong Hospital

Overview

The Illawarra Heart Health Centre, located at Wollongong Hospital, provides services for patients living from Helensburg to Gerringong.

The Centre provides the following services:

Cardiac Rehabilitation

Cardiac Rehabilitation describes all measures used to help people return to an active and satisfying life, and to prevent recurrence of cardiac events.  Cardiac Rehabilitation is for people who have had a STEMI, re-vascularisation, NSTEMI, medical management of their heart disease, CABG and Valve Surgery.

Cardiac Rehabilitation includes the following options:  one-on-one assessment, group education and an exercise program. Our education topics include: exercise, nutrition, stress management, depression, improving sleep, risk factors and risk factor assessment, anatomy and medication. All topics are delivered by experts in their field.

Before and after-hours assessment times are available to those patients that return to work relatively quickly and are unable to attend the mainstream program options.

Heart Failure Service

The Heart Failure Service provides education and support for patients diagnosed with chronic heart failure (CHF), their families and carers.

The aim of the service is to improve the quality of life of patients living with CHF. This includes improving functional capacity and self-management skills, which can help prevent avoidable hospital admissions.  We promote best practice as per the National Heart Foundation of Australia and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand; Guidelines for the prevention, detection and management of chronic heart failure in Australia (2018).

Service delivery options include any or all of the following: inpatient assessment and consultation; post discharge telephone follow-up; face to face assessment; multidisciplinary group education and exercise program.

Outpatient Heart Failure Clinic

This weekly clinic is for recently discharged heart failure patients who do not have a Cardiologist. The Heart Failure Clinic also consults for pulmonary hypertension patients who have been referred to the Heart Failure Clinic from their private Cardiologists or as an inpatient.

Cardiology Clinical Trials Unit

Undertaking its first clinical trial in 1988, research remains a fundamental part of the cardiology department at Wollongong Hospital.  The Cardiology Clinical Trials Unit continues its long history of research by offering the people of the Illawarra the most up-to-date advancements in treatment and a commitment to the development of research in the treatment and care of patients living cardiovascular disease.

Support our research

Participate in a clinical trial

Cardiology Clinical Trials are conducted at the Illawarra Heart Health Centre. Click here to find out about clinical trials currently underway.

Contact Information

Illawarra Heart Health Centre
Wollongong Hospital
Corner Loftus and Darling Streets
Wollongong NSW 2500
02 4253 4908

8:30am - 4:30pm

Note: This service also runs in the Shoalhaven.

Our Staff

Assoc Prof
Astin
Lee
Director of Cardiology, Wollongong & Shellharbour Hospitals & Head of Cardiac Services, ISLHD.

Associate Professor Lee is a consultant and interventional cardiologist with a clinic in Wollongong.

Associate Professor Lee graduated from the University of Sydney with First Class Honours in Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1997.

He completed his cardiology training in 2004 and an interventional fellowship at Westmead Hospital in 2005.

Associate Professor Lee holds Fellowships from:

  • The Royal Australasian College of Physicians
  • The Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand
  • The American College of Cardiology
  • The European Society of Cardiology
  • The Royal College of Physicians (London)
  • The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention.

He is currently the Director of Cardiology at Wollongong and Shellharbour Hospitals. He is also the Head of Cardiac Services in the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District overseeing the delivery of cardiac services from Bulli to Milton-Ulladulla.

He is a Clinical Associate Professor of the School of Medicine at the University of Wollongong.

Specialisations

  • ECG
  • Echocardiogram
  • Holter
  • Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring
  • Implantable device & program
  • Stress test
  • CT
  • Cardiac catheterisation
  • Coronary angioplasty
  • TOE
  • DCCV
  • Closure of cardiac defects