PARKRIDGE MEDICAL CENTER AND PARKRIDGE EAST HOSPITAL RECEIVES CHEST PAIN CENTER ACCREDITATION

Chattanooga , TN — June 17, 2004 . The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Parkridge Medical Center , including the campus of Parkridge East Hospital , making them the 13th and 14th facility in Tennessee , and 49th and 50th in the nation to be accredited.

Niels Vernegaard, President and CEO of Parkridge Medical Center says, “Physicians and employees dedicated to the care of their patients and backed up by rigorous quality control produce awards such as this. This accreditation, along with numerous other awards and recognitions, shows that some of the best care in the nation occurs right here in Chattanooga at Parkridge, and Parkridge East. That is something all Chattanoogans can be proud of.”

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 Parkridge and Parkridge East have 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
Ensuring 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 have display symptoms of a possible heart attack

About Parkridge Medical Center, Inc.

Parkridge Medical Center and Parkridge East Hospital , a facility of Parkridge Medical Center , are located in Chattanooga and affiliated with HCA-The Healthcare Company are part of the TriStar family of hospitals. Parkridge Medical Center provides the region's most comprehensive range of services, from neonatal care to open-heart surgery to children's psychiatric care. Recognized nationally for excellence, Parkridge Medical Center and the Parkridge East campus, was ranked “#1 in Tennessee for Overall Orthopedic Services and “Top 5% Nationally for Overall Orthopedic Services” by HealthGrades, a resource that objectively rates more than 5,000 hospitals nationally. Also in 2004, Parkridge including the campuses of Parkridge East and Parkridge Valley was recognized as one of the nation's “100 Top Hospitals” by Solucient.

TriStar is the most comprehensive healthcare network in Middle Tennessee and the Chattanooga-area offering more choices of hospitals and access to affordable, quality healthcare. Through the TriStar network of hospitals in Tennessee , we serve over 82,400 admissions and 293,000 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 9,500 births, 990 cardiac surgeries, 7,400 cardiac catheterization procedures and 1,100 cancer research protocol patients throughout the network. With over 2,200 licensed beds and a network of over 3000 physicians in 37 specialties within the state, TriStar hospitals provide care for patients in both metropolitan and rural areas. These facilities employ more than 11,000 individual, provide salaries exceeding $600 million, and contribute to an investment of over $3 billion within the state of Tennessee.

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 Parkridge Medical Center or Parkridge East Hospital , contact Betty Weaver, Regional Director of Marketing at 423-493-1685 or visit our websites:

www.ParkridgeMedicalCenter.com and http://www.parkridgeeasthospital.com/

For more information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers, please contact Robert Weisenburger Lipetz, Executive Director at (614) 442-5950 or director@scpcp.org .

Society Media Contact

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