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Press Release
Lutheran Hospital Second Accredited Chest Pain Center in Indiana
FT. WAYNE , IN – February 4, 2004. The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Lutheran Hospital , making it the second in Indiana and the 27th in the nation to be accredited.
“Over the last four years Lutheran Hospital has developed protocols to expedite the process of getting patients with chest pain evaluated quickly and activating our system for catheterization laboratory treatment for those with heart attacks,” said Steven Orlow, MD, Medical Director of the Lutheran Cardiac Catheterization Lab. “This experience served us well during our recent survey for accreditation as a Chest Pain Center. Now we are taking this knowledge and experience to the next step...the next era.”
The Society was most impressed by the organizational structure and commitment of the entire staff to the accreditation process. “Lutheran Hospital is to be commended on its organizational structure and commitment,” said Scott Soronen of the Society's Accreditation Review Team.
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 Lutheran 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 Lutheran Hospital of Indiana
Founded on Thanksgiving Day in 1904, Lutheran Hospital of Indiana has maintained its commitment to meeting the health care needs of northeast Indiana for close to a century. Lutheran Hospital is the region's only heart transplant facility. The transplant team of physicians, nurses and technicians has earned the 343-bed hospital national and world recognition. This tertiary facility also has a strong commitment to pediatrics. That's why Lutheran Children's Hospital was developed. This "hospital within a hospital" concept allows children to be treated like children, not like small adults. For more information about the services available at Lutheran Hospital, visit www.lutheranhospital.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 Lutheran Hospital of Indiana, contact Geoff Thomas, Media Coordinator, Lutheran Health Network, at (260) 435-7122.
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