When you’re experiencing a heart attack, time is muscle. At The Med, our Cycle III Chest Pain Center is recognized for its timely assessment and initial treatment of heart attacks.* Our team’s average door-to-balloon time in April was 49 minutes – significantly less than the national goal of 90 minutes or less. Door-to-balloon time is the amount of time it takes for a person experiencing a heart attack to get from the E.R. doors to the cath lab where a balloon is inserted into a heart vessel to help restore blood flow.** So when your heart needs care, don’t waste time. Choose The Med.
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 College Station 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
- Continually seeking to improve processes and procedures
- Ensuring Chest Pain Center personnel competency and training
- Maintaining organizational structure and commitment
- Having a functional design that promotes optimal patient care
- Supporting community outreach programs that educate the public to promptly seek medical care if they display symptoms of a possible heart attack
For more information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers visit www.scpcp.org.
*Chest Pain Center Accreditation by the Society of Chest Pain Centers. **Comparative data for door-to-balloon times reported on www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for heart attacks requiring angioplasty. Average door-to-balloon for April 2012. National goal is 90 minutes or less for at least 75% of patients. Additional references can be found through the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA). If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911.