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Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEMORIAL HOSPITAL RECEIVES
CHEST PAIN CENTER ACCREDITATION

South Bend, IN— August 25, 2004. The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Memorial Hospital of South Bend, making it the third facility in Indiana and 52nd in the nation to be accredited. The other two accredited hospitals in Indiana are Lutheran Hospital in Fort Wayne and Deaconess Hospital in Evansville. Other hospitals with Accredited Chest Pain Centers include Weill Cornell Medical Center and Columbia Presbyterian, both in New York City, Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“We are honored to receive this accreditation, especially as we approach the opening our new heart and vascular center,” said Daniel E. Neufelder, Chief Operating Officer of Memorial Hospital. “This designation reflects the efforts of our physicians and staff to become one of the premier locations in the midwest for providing education and services related to heart care.”

Bev Teegarden, Memorial’s Executive Director of Cardiovascular and Critical Care Services, added that the accreditation is based on the entire process of addressing heart disease, from community education on prevention to pre-hospital care, diagnosis, treatment and recovery.

Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the United States, with 600,000 people 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 from triage to 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. Memorial incorporated a nine-room patient unit for such observation in its Emergency Trauma Center which opened in 2002.

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 Memorial 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
• 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 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. Established in 1998, The Society is dedicated to patient advocacy and focusing on ischemic heart disease. Central to its mission is the question, “What is right for the patient?” In answer, The Society promotes protocol-based medicine, often delivered through a Chest Pain Center model to address the diagnosis and treatment of acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, and to promote the adoption of process improvement science by healthcare providers. SCPC is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit www.scpcp.org.

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.

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