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Press Release
Florida Hospital Altamonte First Hospital In Seminole County With Accredited Chest Pain Center
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, FL – January 7, 2004. The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Florida Hospital Altamonte, making it the third in Florida and the 20th in the nation to be accredited.
The Society was most impressed by the commitment of the entire staff to the accreditation process. “Florida Hospital Altamonte is to be commended on its organizational structure and commitment,” said Scott Soronen of the Society’s Accreditation Review Team.
“As part of a cardiac center with an experienced healthcare team, this designation recognizes that Florida Hospital Altamonte is a proven leader for cardiac care,” stated Colette Thompson, RN, director of cardiovascular services at Florida Hospital Altamonte.
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 Florida Hospital Altamonte 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
- Insuring 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 Florida Hospital Altamonte
Florida Hospital Altamonte, a 258-bed full-service hospital located just north of Orlando, has been providing comprehensive health care to the community for the past 30 years. As Seminole County’s preferred healthcare provider and a part of a nationally-recognized cardiac center, Florida Hospital Altamonte offers an array of cardiac diagnostic services, as well as a comprehensive cancer institute, surgical services, maternity, and state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging, among many other services. For more information, visit www.floridahospital.com/altamonte.
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 www.scpcp.org.
For more information on the Florida Hospital Altamonte, contact Colette A. Thompson, Director of Cardiology Services at (407) 303-2298 or Colette.Thompson@flhosp.org.
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