St. Elizabeth East receives new status as an accredited chest pain center

St. Elizabeth East announced that it has received chest pain center accreditation from the Society of Chest Pain Centers. The society granted St. Elizabeth East the accreditation on May 19, 2010. The accreditation is valid for three years. There are only 587 other facilities in the United States that have received this accreditation.

St. Elizabeth East undertook a rigorous re-evaluation and refinement of heart care processes in order to integrate the industry’s best practices and newest paradigms into its cardiac care services. St. Elizabeth East’s state-of-the-art heart center works seamlessly with area emergency medical services, such as Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service, and other area first responders to ensure that patients get the treatment they need during the critical early stages of a heart attack.

As an accredited chest pain center, St. Elizabeth East ensures that patients who come to St. Elizabeth East complaining of chest pain or discomfort are given the immediate treatment necessary to avoid as much heart damage as possible. Protocol-based procedures developed by leading experts in cardiac care to reduce time to treatment in the critical early stages of a heart attack are part of St. Elizabeth East’s overall cardiac care service.

“People tend to wait when they think they might be having a heart attack, and that’s a mistake,” said Karen Bullard, R.N., director of Inpatient Cardiac Care at St. Elizabeth East. “The sooner a heart attack is treated, the less damage to the heart and the better the outcome.”

Two years ago, St. Elizabeth Regional Health worked with Tippecanoe Emergency Ambulance Service to place EKG machines in the ambulances that record a heart tracing. That heart tracing is then faxed directly to the Emergency Department for the emergency physician to review. If the patient is having a heart attack, St. Elizabeth Regional Health will immediately notify the the heart cath team. As a result of this early activation of the heart cath team which includes the cardiologist that will open the vessel in the heart that is blocked, the team is often ready for the patient when the patient arrives in the Emergency Department. Approximately 5 extra minutes on the scene can save the patient 30 minutes when they arrive at the hospital. The sooner we can remove that blockage, the less damage there is to the heart and the better the outcome is for our patients, according to Wayne O’Connor, R.N., division director of Emergency Services for St. Elizabeth Regional Health.

St. Elizabeth East is located at 1701 S. Creasy Lane in Lafayette. For more information, please visit www.ste.org.