URBANA — Carle Foundation Hospital has received accreditation as a Chest Pain Center from the Society of Chest Pain Centers, a non-profit, international society whose mission is to reduce heart-related fatalities. Carle is the only hospital in central Illinois to hold this official designation.

“This accreditation further assures our patients that they have access to the most advanced heart care services available in central Illinois,” John Snyder, executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Carle Foundation, said in a press release. “Chest pain centers have shown that they can reduce the time it takes for a potential heart attack patient to see a physician. That is important since treatment is most effective during the early stages of a cardiac episode.”

Carle Foundation Hospital’s accreditation as a Chest Pain Center goes above and beyond the required standards to include a PCI designation (Percutaneous Coronary Intervention), a procedure commonly known as angioplasty, to treat narrowed arteries of the heart. Carle is one of only seven Illinois hospitals to have a PCI designation.

Chest pain centers allow physicians to better monitor patients through a specialized observation setting, and help to educate the community about the risks of heart disease, said Benjamin Davis, M.D., emergency department physician and medical director of the chest pain center.

Once a patient with chest pain arrives in the emergency department, either by ambulance or walk-in, triage nurses activate the Rule Out Myocardial Infarction protocol. This protocol facilitates nurses arriving promptly at the patient's bedside to start IVs, draw blood and initiate therapy. At the same time, a page is sent to a technician who promptly performs an EKG that is immediately read by an emergency physician.

“If it is clearly a heart attack, the cardiologist will be notified by the emergency physician within minutes,” Dr. Davis said.

Carle’s PCI designation, which accompanies its Chest Pain Center accreditation, is especially beneficial to patients, said Matthew Gibb, M.D., head of cardiology and medical director of the cardiac catheterization lab at Carle hospital. PCI procedures are performed in a cardiac catheterization lab.

A more positive outcome for the patient is realized when the timeframe is short between when a heart attack is diagnosed and the time the patient is brought to the catheterization lab, Gibb said.

“We’re consistently at 60 minutes or less from the time a patient enters the emergency department to the time a procedure is performed in the catheterization lab,” he said.

An interventional cardiology team is on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week and can respond to cardiac emergencies within 20 minutes of notification, Gibb said.

Snyder said Carle’s Chest Pain Center accreditation further complements the hospital’s national recognition as a leader in providing superior cardiovascular services. The hospital has received five-star ratings for clinical excellence in the treatment of heart failure and atrial fibrillation from HealthGrades, the nation's leading healthcare ratings company.

In addition to its five-star ratings, Carle hospital is ranked among the top 10 percent of hospitals in the nation for cardiology services.