Certifications

The Society of Chest Pain Centers offers two types of Certifications at this time.

Atrial Fibrillation Certification

The Society of Chest Pain Centers has developed an Atrial Fibrillation Certification program to assist hospitals to critically appraise their evaluation, treatment, and management of atrial fibrillation patients.  As is the case with chest pain and heart failure accreditation (also offered by the Society), these tools allow you to evaluate your strategies against nationally recognized guidelines and recommendation with the intention of improving processes.  Process improvement is considered in key areas including emergency assessment, risk stratification, treatment and management, discharge criteria, patient education, and community outreach.

A certification manual must be purchased and, much like the accreditation toolkits for chest pain and heart failure will contain all of the instructions and online documents.  The Certification Tool contains the key elements, essential items, and best practices that will be used for the gap analysis and reporting.  As with accreditation, a notebook must be submitted with all of the documentation to support each item you select in the Tool.  The major difference with A-fib Certification is that a site visit will not be performed.  Once all of the documents are submitted, they will undergo an internal review by the Accreditation Review Team and Committee to determine certification status.

Please be aware that there are three stringent requirements to qualify for Atrial Fibrillation Certification:

1. A facility seeking A-fib Certification must be currently accredited by the SCPC as a Chest Pain Center or Chest Pain Center with PCI.
2. In the 12 months preceding the application for certification, the facility must perform a minimum of 50 onsite catheter-based ablation procedures for any arrhythmia on any cardiac anatomic site and with any technology.
3. Also, each principal operator must be a physician specifically trained in invasive cardiac electrophysiologic studies (EPS) and must perform a minimum of 30 catheter-based ablation procedures in the 12 months preceding the application.

Chest Pain Coordinator Certification

The Certified Chest Pain Coordinator Program promotes competence and recognition of professionals who serve as coordinators in a chest pain center setting. Applicants who meet the eligibility requirements and pass the certifying examination are granted the designation of CPCC. This certification ensures the recipient possesses the knowledge and skills to successfully guide facilities through the process of accreditation.