Medical center receives chest pain center accreditation

The chest pain center at UNMC’s hospital partner, The Nebraska Medical Center, has received full Chest Pain Center Accreditation with Percutaneous Coronary Interventions (PCI) from the Society of Chest Pain Centers.

The society’s accreditation process ensures centers meet or exceed quality-of-care measures in acute cardiac medicine.

The Nebraska Medical Center Chest Pain 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; and
  
• Supporting community outreach programs that educate the public to promptly seek medical care if they display symptoms of a possible heart attack.

“The medical center’s chest pain center accreditation is a nice verification of The Nebraska Medical Center’s commitment to prompt, high quality treatment of all patients with chest pain.” Scott Shurmur, M.D.

“This accreditation demonstrates The Nebraska Medical Center’s effective multi-disciplinary approach in which the emergency department staff, cardiology staff and nursing staff all contribute knowledge and expertise in the chest pain care process,” said Scott Shurmur, M.D., associate professor of cardiology at UNMC and cardiologist and medical director of preventive and rehabilitative cardiology at The Nebraska Medical Center. “The medical center’s chest pain center accreditation is a nice verification of The Nebraska Medical Center’s commitment to prompt, high quality treatment of all patients with chest pain.”

In 2007, The Nebraska Medical Center’s Congestive Heart Failure program and Acute Myocardial Infarction (heart attack) program also each received the “Gold Seal of Approval” certification from The Joint Commission making these services the first and only nationally certified programs of their kind in the state of Nebraska.

The Nebraska Medical Center has the only CMS certified heart transplantation program in the state and staffs the state’s only certified heart failure specialist and certified heart transplant surgeon.

The Society of Chest Pain Centers is a patient centric non-profit international professional organization focused upon improving care for patients with acute coronary syndromes and other related maladies. Established in 1998, the Society is dedicated to patient advocacy and focusing on ischemic heart disease.

For more information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers visit www.scpcp.org, or contact Robert Lipetz, Executive Director at (614) 442-5950 or director@scpcp.org.