Chest Pain Center

ALL HEART.

 

As an Accredited Chest Pain Center, St. Tammany Health System is the Northshore’s premiere location for cardiac care.

 

 

Chest Pain Center

 

When it comes to heart attacks, time is everything; mere minutes can often mean the difference between life or death. So, knowing the location of the nearest accredited chest pain center can save a patient’s life. 

 

On the Northshore, that place is St. Tammany Health System.

 

Leading the region and the state, St. Tammany Health System has earned Chest Pain Accreditation by the American College of Cardiology Accreditation Services and earns high marks with 97 percent of heart attack patients receiving intervention to open blocked blood vessels and restore blood flow to the heart within 90 minutes of arrival or less.

 

That sort of attention and dedication saves lives. Coupled with the hospital’s cath and peripheral labs, state-of-the-art operating suites, a certified cardiac rehab program, a Coumadin clinic and active staff relationships with the region’s leading cardiology and cardiovascular specialists, it also positions St. Tammany Health System as the premiere location for cardiac care in the region.


What is an Accredited Chest Pain Center?

A closer look at what it means – and why it matters.

 

The Accredited 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 or not they are having a coronary event. Such observation helps ensure that patients are neither sent home too early nor needlessly admitted. 

 

The Accredited Chest Pain Center at St. Tammany Health System has demonstrated its expertise and commitment to quality patient care by meeting or exceeding a wide set of stringent criteria and undergoing an onsite review by a team of ACC’s accreditation review specialists. Key areas in which an Accredited Chest Pain Center must demonstrate expertise include the following:

 

  • 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
  • Continually seeking to improve processes and procedures
  • Ensuring the competence and training of Accredited Chest Pain Center personnel
  • Maintaining organizational structure and commitment
  • Having a functional design that promotes optimal patient care
  • Supporting community outreach programs that educate the public to promptly seek medical care if they display symptoms of a possible heart attack

A focus on chest pain

Jeff Meyers, the chest pain coordinator at St. Tammany Health System, talks with “Healthy Living” host Melissa Hodgson about the health system’s Accredited Chest Pain Center designation and how that helps people quickly get care for a heart attack or heart failure.


Additional resources

The more you know about chest pain, the better positioned you are to save a life.

 

Know the symptoms

Know the symptoms

Did you know most heart damage can occur within the first two hours of a heart attack? That’s why it’s so important to recognize the early signs and symptoms of a heart attack. It can help you save a life – and possibly even your own.
 
Learn more
Hands-only CPR

Hands-only CPR

CPR can double or triple your chance of surviving, especially if it’s done immediately. Hands-only CPR is done without mouth-to-mouth breaths, but it’s as effective as conventional CPR for cardiac arrest at home, work or in public spaces.

 

Learn more
ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus

ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus

The updated ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus uses up-to-date ACC clinical policy and user feedback to help a clinician and patient build a customized risk lowering plan by estimating and monitoring change in 10-year ASCVD risk.

 

Estimate risk

Full cardio care

A closer look at STHS’s comprehensive cardiac services:

 

Covington Cardiovascular Care
Ph: 985-871-4140

How important is cardiac care at St. Tammany Health System? Well, let’s just say there’s a reason our logo is built around the image of a heart. Our team of experts at STHS’s Covington Cardiovascular Care live up to that promise every day, providing Northshore residents with comprehensive and compassionate cardiac care close to home.



Cardiac Cath Lab
Ph: 985-898-4000

Located on our main hospital campus in Covington, our Cardiac Cath Lab provides patients with a suite of diagnostic and treatment services, including stent and pacemaker placement, angioplasty, angiography, cardiac catheterization, ablation and more. Patients recover on-site until they are discharged, in most cases later that same day.



Cardiac Rehabilitation
Ph: 985-898-4414

Operating out of STHS’s Paul D. Cordes Outpatient Pavilion in Covington, our Cardio Rehab facility hosts a multi-phased program designed, first, to get patients back on their feet. That’s followed by a blend of education and exercise in our on-site facility and, if necessary, enrollment in our Living Tobacco Free smoking cessation program.


Awards and Accreditations

St. Tammany Health System's cardiac care programs have earned recognition from groups including:

 

Healthgrades – Stroke Care Excellence Award Women’s Choice Awards-- America’s Best Stroke Centers Advanced Certification for Primary Stroke Center (AHA and Joint Commission) AHA Stroke Quality Achievement Award/Get with the Guidelines Stroke Gold Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care Chest Pain Center

Meet Our Team

Jeffrey Meyers, BSN, RN

 

Jeffrey Meyers, BSN, RN

Chest Pain Accreditation Coordinator

(985) 871-5729