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Story last
updated at 9:23 a.m. Monday, January 3, 2005
Roper
Hospital opens chest pain unit
HEALTH CARE
BY
JONATHAN MAZE
Of
The Post and Courier Staff
Jean
Wier
didn't think she was having a heart attack that morning in June when she woke up
with an intense pressure in her chest. And why would she? Though 75, she hadn't
had any problems with her heart.
Neither
did doctors at
Roper
Hospital
a few blocks from Wier's downtown home, where she went after the pain persisted.
Tests were negative, but they made her the first patient in a new five-bed
observation unit for patients with chest pain but no clear signs of a heart
attack.
Which is
exactly what happened to Wier at 11 that night as she slept. "They saved my
life," she said.
Roper is
looking to attract more such patients to its hospital. It recently established
its chest pain center, adding the observation unit and earning a national
accreditation by following a series of guidelines that will be checked every few
years.
It's the
area's first chest pain center, but it won't be the last. "I'm sure that the
Medical
University and other hospitals will be doing the same thing soon," said Dr.
Jeb Hallett, who heads vascular surgery at Roper's Heart and Vascular
Center.
Chest
pain patients are an emerging target in the ongoing war for heart patients, the
most lucrative in health care. Having established its chest pain center, Roper
has undertaken an area-wide effort to tell people about it, in billboards across
town.
Meanwhile, the Medical University of South Carolina recently became one
of the first five hospitals across the country to start using a new 64-slice CT
scanner used to detect blockages of the heart and that may be beneficial to
patients with chest pain but no obvious signs of an attack. Already, university
officials say that theirs' should be the hospital of choice for chest pain.
It's not
much of a coincidence that this is coming as the facilities construct new
buildings that will be largely devoted to heart patients, MUSC's new hospital
and Roper's $77.4 million expansion that is expected to be open in about a year.
Roper
officials say that the chest pain center, though planned separately from the
expansion, is a vital piece to that puzzle. "I really think it is," said
David Dunlap, chief executive of the hospital's parent company, Roper St.
Francis Healthcare.
"Heart
disease is not only the No. 1 cause of death, it is something that is much more
treatable than it ever has been. So early interventions can make a big
difference in the outcome."
Chest
pain centers were developed in the 1980s as hospitals learned that quick
treatment made a big difference in outcomes for heart attacks. The Society of
Chest Pain Centers, which accredits some facilities, estimates that there
are now 1,500 nationwide.
Roper, in
fact, has had a chest pain center for years. It was reorganized and improved,
with the observation unit, and the hospital earned its accreditation in October.
There are now 87 accredited centers nationwide, including one other facility in South
Carolina,
Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.
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