The barrier to this we still face. The Best is shifting the paradigm of care to Acute Prevention. Early intervention amounts to acute prevention. Stopping the heart attack allows one to use this teachable moment to educate about primary risk factor reduction. Thus disease prevention brings about health promotion.
Patients come to the hospital when they are experiencing chest pain or chest discomfort.
A Chest Pain Center in the Emergency Department is a way that a community hospital can focus attention on heart attacks through chest pain evaluation. It then becomes a basic subunit that when multiplied by the 6700 community hospitals in the United States provides widespread penetration for the heart attack deaths to be prevented. It allows for more efficiency, more focused attention, proper preparation to take place and comprehensive management of chest pain patients with cardiac rehabilitation upon discharge. It allows for research activities to further develop critical pathways as well as provide the learning curve that can be shared by a variety of care givers. Such centers act as damage control centers.