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Nine Accredited Chest Pain Centers Serving Our Region
Carolinas Medical Center now has nine accredited chest pain centers in its regional hospital network. Only two other hospital systems in the country have this number of facilities working jointly to facilitate better and faster cardiac care.
The accredited facilities include Carolinas Medical Center's main campus, CMC-Lincoln, CMC-Mercy, CMC-NorthEast, CMC-Pineville, CMC-Union and CMC-University, Cleveland Regional Medical Center and Kings Mountain Hospital. All of the designations are awarded by the Society of Chest Pain Centers (CPC), a national accrediting organization that promotes best practices in emergency cardiac care.
Learn more about our chest pain network.
Heart Failure Program
Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute introduced the region's first Heart Failure Program in 1997. Because heart failure is a complex condition, a special team of healthcare professionals is needed in diagnosing and treating chronic heart failure. The team is dedicated to providing the highest quality of patient care and the most innovative management of heart failure.
Research has shown that patients enrolled in Heart Failure Program have:
- Significantly fewer hospital admissions (as much as a 75 percent reduction among the highest risk patients)
- Shorter hospital stays (up to a 29 percent reduction among patients who had to be readmitted)
- Improved heart function (as much as 46 percent).
The treatment of heart disease can be very complex and is based on the severity of the disease and the patient's associated illness. The program uses a team approach to delivering the most comprehensive heart failure management. A cardiologist specially trained in heart failure/transplant, nurse coordinators, a pharmacist and a social worker work together to create the most effective and efficient treatment plan for each patient. Every detail of that treatment plan and its results are shared with the patient's primary care physician.
The treatment plan may include:
- Enrollment in the Heart Failure Program
- Drug assistance and education
- Home-care intravenous medication
- Dietary counseling
- Social assistance and refer to community services
- Outpatient infusion treatments
A major focus of the Heart Failure Program is patient and family education. The program encourages patients to be active participants in their health care. Nurses are in frequent contact with patients to assess medication tolerance and compliance, signs and symptoms, and check on daily weights.
Another benefit provided by the Heart Failure Program is access to new drug therapy protocols. Carolinas Medical Center participates and collaborates in nationally and internationally recognized cardiac research studies. This provides the heart failure patients access to the most advanced therapies months, or even years, before they are readily available to the public.
For more information, call 704-355-8816.
"These are patients who need a tremendous amount of emotional support and education. We want to help them manage their heart disease themselves without having to rely on an emergency department or hospitalization. By managing it themselves, they can help maintain their own personal sense of dignity," said Alan Thomley, MD, medical director of the Heart Failure Program and Cardiac Transplantation at Carolinas Medical Center
Watch for these signs of congestive heart failure:
- Shortness of breath caused by fluid in the lungs. This is the most common symptom. It usually occurs during exercise, but can occur during rest too.
- Coughing up pinkish, blood-tinged phlegm.
- Swelling (edema) of the legs, ankles and sometimes abdomen due to the buildup of excess fluid in the body's tissues. Weight gain often results.
Signs that show that blood is not being pumped efficiently include:
- Tiredness, weakness and the inability to exert oneself.
- Older individuals may experience confusion and impaired thinking.
- Pain in the arm or shoulder. It may be difficult to lift your arm or to pinpoint a place where the pain is localized.
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