If your chest hurts, use your head. Get to the Chest Pain ER.

If you or a loved one experience heart attack symptoms, seek help immediately. Medical professionals in our Chest Pain Center are trained in rapid response protocols to ensure timely diagnosis and treatment of heart attacks. Actually, we treat much more than heart attacks. We also use a systematic approach to the acute management of congestive heart failure (CHF) and other cardiovascular emergencies.

Heart Attack
Patients suspected of having a heart attack benefit from:

• EKG within 5 minutes of arrival.
• Physician evaluation of EKG within 5 minutes of completion.
• Immediate blood tests for accurate diagnosis.
• Aspirin therapy, unless contraindicated.

Congestive Heart Failure (CHF)
Emergent care of congestive heart failure includes:

• Timely EKG.
• Chest x-ray and interpretation available 24/7.
• Diagnostic blood tests, which may include BNP, a new test that may diagnose even mild CHF not identified by a chest x-ray.

Where do patients go from here?
Patients diagnosed with a high risk of cardiovascular disease are typically admitted to the hospital for further care. Individuals with low to moderate risk are transferred to the Emergency Diagnostic and Therapeutic Unit (EDTU) for testing and monitoring. Testing usually includes an exercise stress test overseen by a cardiologist.

Continuous Quality Improvement
We review the care of individual patients, including every heart attack patient, to ensure that medical protocols are implemented appropriately and to monitor outcomes. Quality improvement is an ongoing process as we continually strive to improve care.