Florida Hospital East Orlando Second Accredited Chest Pain Center in Florida.

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society of Chest Pain Centers has granted the designation of Accredited Chest Pain Center to Florida Hospital East Orlando, making it the second in Florida and the 19th in the nation to be accredited.

The Society was most impressed by the commitment of the entire staff to the accreditation process. "Florida Hospital East Orlando is to be commended on its organizational structure and commitment," said Scott Sorenson of the Society's Accreditation Review Team. "The signage at Florida Hospital East Orlando for EMS and private vehicles throughout the complex is excellent. The signs for "Walk-In" patients are the most complete, easiest to find and follow of all the site visits to date."

"The granting of full accreditation as a Chest Pain Center is a powerful statement for East Orlando. The Emergency Department staff as well as the in- patient staff has worked hard to ensure that patients with chest pain receive state-of-the-art care," said Dena Mikkonen, director of emergency services at Florida Hospital East Orlando. "This accreditation is a tribute to the work of an exceptional staff and system."

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 Florida Hospital East Orlando 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
   - Having a functional design that promotes optimal patient care
   - Insuring Chest Pain Center personnel competency and training
   - Maintaining organizational structure and commitment
   - Continually seeking to improve processes and procedures
   - Supporting community outreach programs that educate the public to
     promptly seek medical care if they have display symptoms of a possible
     heart attack

  About Florida Hospital East Orlando

With seven hospitals and 14 Centra Care walk-in medical centers, Florida Hospital is one of the largest not-for-profit hospitals in the country. This year, hospital staff members will care for almost one million people in our community. Florida Hospital provides a wide range of health services for the entire family, including many nationally and internationally recognized programs in cardiology, cancer, women's medicine, neurology, diabetes and rehabilitation. For more information, visit http://www.flhosp.org/locations/east/ .

About the Society of Chest Pain Centers

The Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC) is an international professional society focused on improving care for patients with acute coronary syndromes and related maladies. The Society is committed to improving the quality of patient care through protocol-based medicine and the adoption of process improvement science to healthcare. SCPC is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit http://www.scpcp.org/ .

For more information on the Florida Hospital East Orlando, contact Media Relations at [phone] or [e-mail] .

For more information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers, please contact Robert Weisenburger Lipetz, Executive Director at [phone] or [e-mail] .

CONTACT: Media Relations of Florida Hospital East Orlando, [phone], or [e-mail]; or Robert Weisenburger Lipetz, Executive Director of The Society of Chest Pain Centers, [phone], or [e-mail]

Web site: http://www.scpcp.org/ http://www.flhosp.org/locations/east/