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Press Release
Tennessee Hospitals Receive Chest Pain Center Accreditation
NASHVILLE, TN – January 19, 2004. The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to four Tri-Star Hospitals in Tennessee— Centennial Medical Center, Hendersonville Medical Center, Horizon Medical Center and Summit Medical Center— acknowledging them as among the first in the nation to be accredited.
These hospitals join Southern Hills Medical Center in Nashville and Greenview Regional Hospital in Bowling Green, also in the TriStar Family of Hospitals, as the only hospitals in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky with this designation.
“We are very proud to have six of the first accredited Chest Pain Centers in the country,” said Cindy Waller, cardiac administrator for TriStar Health System. “This achievement is due to the efforts of our medical and nursing staff and is an example of our commitment to patient care.”
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 encouraging the adoption of the Chest Pain Center model by community hospitals.
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 Hendersonville Medical Center 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 TriStar Health System
These hospitals are members of the TriStar Family of Hospitals. TriStar Health System is the most comprehensive healthcare network in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky. TriStar serves over 63,500 admissions and over 256,000 emergency room visits per year system-wide, and is nationally recognized in the areas of cardiology, orthopedics, oncology, neurology and women's health. In 2002, there were over 7,600 births, 950 cardiac surgeries, 6,700 cardiac catheterization procedures and 1,200 cancer research protocol patients throughout the network. With over 2,500 licensed beds and a network of 3,000 physicians in 50 specialties, TriStar hospitals provide care for patients in both metropolitan and rural areas. For more information about the services offered and health plans accepted by TriStar Health System, please call (615) 342-1919, (800) 242-5662 or visit our website at TriStarHealth.com. For more information, visit www.tristarhealth.com.
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 TriStar Health System, contact TriStar Medline at 615-342-1919 or 800-242-5662.
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