CROUSE HOSPITAL BECOMES FIRST IN STATE TO ACHIEVE NATIONAL HEART FAILURE ACCREDITATION Crouse Hospital has received full Cycle I Heart Failure Accreditation status from the Society of Chest Pain Centers (SCPC), becoming the first hospital in New York state to achieve this designation and one of only 35 in the United States with the accreditation. Crouse Hospital is also a nationally accredited Chest Pain Center by the SCPC, making it the only hospital in the state with dual heart failure and chest pain accreditation. Crouse Hospital demonstrated its ex-
pertise and commitment to quality patient care by meeting or exceeding a wide set of stringent criteria and completing on-site evaluations by a SCPC review team. Crouse Hospital's protocol-driven and systematic
approach to patient management allows physicians to reduce time to treatment and to risk stratify patients to decrease length of stay. Key areas in which a facility with heart failure accreditation must demon- strate expertise include:
+ emergency department integration with emergency medical services,
+ emergency assessment of patients with symptoms of acute decompensated heart failure diagnosis,
+ risk stratification of heart failure patients, and
+ treatment for patients in heart failure presenting to the emergency department. "This latest designation, coupled with
our chest pain accreditation, underscores Crouse's long-term commitment to providing the very best diagnostic and interventional cardiac care to Central New York patients,"
says Joseph Battaglia, M.D., Medical Director for Cardiac Services at Crouse Hospital. Crouse Hospital started the area's only
Care Transitions Program in 2007. The program provides congestive heart failure patients with a dedicated transition coach and a registered nurse who works with them in the hospital and during the transition home to give them the skills and confidence to self-manage once discharged from the hospital. For information on cardiac services at
Crouse Hospital, visit www.crouse.org. For information on the Society of Chest Pain Centers, visit www.scpcp.org.
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