CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Memorial Hospital, making it the 15th facility in Tennessee, and 51st in the nation to be accredited.
“As the leading provider of heart care in the Chattanooga area, Memorial Hospital is pleased to have received formal accreditation as a Chest Pain Center,” says Diona Brown, Director of Cardiac Services at Memorial. “The survey team found that Memorial is totally prepared to care for patients with heart attack symptoms. They were impressed with ambulance and emergency care, our superior diagnostic and treatment protocols and our community outreach efforts to create awareness of heart attack symptoms and the importance of emergency care.”
“The on-site review team is very thorough. They examined every aspect of our cardiac services and saw that we have a systematic approach to patient management that allows physicians to reduce the time to treatment during the critical early stages of a heart attack,” Ms. Brown explained.
Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the United States, with 600,000 dying annually of heart disease. More than five million Americans visit hospitals each year with chest pain. The goal of the Society of Chest Pain Centers is to significantly reduce the mortality rate of these patients by teaching the public to recognize and react to the early symptoms of a possible heart attack, reduce the time that it takes to receive treatment, and increase the accuracy and effectiveness of treatment.
The Chest Pain Center’s protocol driven and systematic approach to patient management allows physicians to reduce time to treatment during the critical early stages of a heart attack, when treatments are most effective, and to better monitor patients when it is not clear whether they are having a coronary event. Such observation helps ensure that a patient is neither sent home too early nor needlessly admitted.
With the rise of Chest Pain Centers came the need to establish standards designed to improve the consistency and quality of care provided to patients. The Society’s accreditation process insures centers meet or exceed quality-of- care measures in acute cardiac medicine.
The Chest Pain Center at Memorial Hospital has demonstrated its expertise and commitment to quality patient care by meeting or exceeding a wide set of stringent criteria and completing on-site evaluations by a review team from the Society of Chest Pain Centers. Key areas in which a Chest Pain Center must demonstrate expertise include:
- Integrating the emergency department with the local emergency medical system - Assessing, diagnosing, and treating patients quickly - Effectively treating patients with low risk for acute coronary syndrome and no assignable cause for their symptoms - Having a functional design that promotes optimal patient care - Ensuring Chest Pain Center personnel competency and training - Maintaining organizational structure and commitment - Continually seeking to improve processes and procedures - Supporting community outreach programs that educate the public to promptly seek medical care if they display symptoms of a possible heart attack About the Society of Chest Pain Centers
The Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC) is an international professional society focused on improving care for patients with acute coronary syndromes and related maladies. The Society is committed to improving the quality of patient care through protocol-based medicine and the adoption of process improvement science to healthcare. SCPC is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit http://www.scpcp.org/ .
For more information on Memorial Hospital, contact Patrice Batchelor, Director of Provider Relations at (423) 495-6500 or email Patrice_batchelor@memorial.org .
For more information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers, please contact Robert Weisenburger Lipetz, Executive Director at (614) 274-9710 or director@scpcp.org .
Society of Chest Pain Centers
CONTACT: Patrice Batchelor, Director of Provider Relations of MemorialHospital, +1-423-495-6500, or Patrice_batchelor@memorial.org; or RobertWeisenburger Lipetz, Executive Director of the Society of Chest Pain Centers,+1-614-274-9710
Web site: http://www.scpcp.org/