Dunn Memorial is Lawrence County’s only
Accredited Chest Pain Center
Dunn Memorial Hospital has once again earned Full Accreditation from the Society of Chest Pain Centers. In 2006 Dunn Memorial was only the 10th hospital in Indiana to earn Full Accreditation designation. The standards Dunn Memorial must adhere to are reviewed every three years by the Society of Chest Pain Centers. We are proud to offer our community cardiac service that meet the highest standards.
Some key strengths that are demonstrated by our cardiology team each day and were noted during the site visit are:
- Door to balloon time is 60.9 minutes (the national optimal standard is 90 minutes)
- Door to ECG time is 3.8 minutes (the optimal standard is 10 minutes or less)
- Dunn’s EMS can transmit data which prepares our cardio-team before the patient arrives.
- Dunn Memorial is one of only a handful of Critical Access Hospitals in the nation that offer and perform with outstanding outcomes PCI’s -Percutaneous Coronary Interventions, known previously as Angioplasty.
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 Dunn 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
* 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