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Press Release
Riverside Community Hospital - First Accredited Chest Pain Center in California
RIVERSIDE, CA – January 21, 2004. The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Riverside Community Hospital, making it the first in California and the 11th in the nation.
“We’re proud to be the first hospital in California to receive this accreditation. Meeting and exceeding the standards set by the Society of Chest Pain Centers in the accreditation process ensures our patients that they’ll receive the highest quality care available,” stated Jaime Wesolowski, President and CEO of Riverside Community Hospital. “It reflects the tremendous commitment of our hospital and staff in providing superior, patient-focused cardiac care in our community.”
The Society’s accreditation review team, including Raymond Bahr, M.D., Founder of the first Chest Pain Center in Baltimore Maryland, found Riverside’s community education program to be a remarkable example of their dedication to cardiovascular 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 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 Riverside Community 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
- 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 Riverside Community Hospital
Riverside Community Hospital, of HCA Healthcare system, is a 364-bed acute care, Level II Trauma facility, serving the greater Riverside County since 1901. With 400 highly skilled physicians and 1,600 professionals on medical staff, RCH specializes in emergency medicine, cardiac services, transplant surgery, cancer treatment, labor and delivery, neonatal intensive care, and orthopedic and rehab services. For more information, visit www.riversidecommunityhospital.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 Riverside Community Hospital, please contact Ann Matich, Vice President of Marketing at (909) 788-3535 or ann.matich@hcahealthcare.com.
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