Galichia Heart Hospital has been accredited as a chest pain center, the only Wichita hospital to have the designation.

"We're very thrilled about it," said Stephen Harris, chief executive of the hospital at 2610 N. Woodlawn.

"It means that the community can be assured that we meet the rigorous standards and clinical protocols established by the Society of Chest Pain Centers."

Kansas' other accredited chest pain centers are in Topeka, Lawrence and the Kansas City area. Wesley Medical Center has applied for accreditation; it has

had the designation in the past. A change in personnel kept reaccreditation paperwork from being filed on time, a Wesley spokesman has said.

Harris said the accreditation is for three years. Earning the designation took more than a year, he said, beginning with the submission of four 3-inch-thick

notebooks of information on treatment of patients with chest pain.

The society audited the information, interviewed staff, tested processes, "and at the end of that, you're either accredited or you're not," he said. Galichia had

a site visit by the organization in early November.

Galichia emergency room physician Greg Faimon is co-director of the chest pain center with cardiologist Angampally Rajeev.

"The accreditation is a recognition that we've gone through processes and procedures to streamline care for patients with chest pain, both on the diagnostic

side as well as the treatment side," Faimon said Wednesday. "It puts us up in the national standards rather than just what's expected locally."

He said applying for the designation helped the medical staff find ways to reduce the amount of time it took to get an arriving patient having a heart attack

into the cath lab.

"It improved our ability to care for those patients," he said.

Galichia Heart Hospital opened as a specialty heart hospital, though it now is a general hospital. It has long been known for its heart patient care, Faimon

said. "But now we've gone through a really rigorous process to get accredited."

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