Chest Pain: Saving 10 Minutes; Saving Lives
Ten minutes may be just a matter of moments in our daily lives. But for a patient having a heart attack, 10 minutes can mean the difference between life and death.
Patients who arrive in our Emergency Department with chest pain symptoms begin treatment in our Cardiac Catheterization Lab 10 minutes faster than the national benchmark. This process is known as door-to-balloon time; the quicker, the more likely we can save a life.
Aside from benefiting our patients, those 10 minutes saved have earned Swedish Covenant Hospital a Chest Pain Center accreditation. We are one of the first hospitals in the Chicago area to receive Cycle 3 Accreditation for chest pain, which is earned by a select number of hospitals for providing rapid assessment and effective treatment for patients with chest pain symptoms.
