Chest Pain Center

The Yale-New Haven Chest Pain Center (CPC) is staffed 24 hours a day by a dedicated emergency services team trained in recognizing and treating low-moderate risk patients for acute coronary syndrome.

The observation unit consists of four designated rooms in the Yale-New Haven Emergency Department designed for patient comfort and an overnight stay.

After an initial evaluation in the Emergency Department, patients admitted to the CPC are closely monitored while they are ruled out for acute myocardial infarction with serial cardiac enzymes and EKGs. In addition, every patient is assessed by a nuclear cardiology fellow for an optimal diagnostic study individualized for each patient. At the end of this expedited ACS rule-out, patients undergo a cardiac stress test to rule out coronary artery disease.

Typical patients for the CPC include either those who are at high risk for heart disease and have an atypical presentation or those who are at low risk for heart disease but present with classic symptoms of a heart attack. Patients with arrhythmias and infarctions do not qualify.

Yale-New Haven Hospital ED’s Chest Pain Center is one of the few centers in the nation that utilizes state-of-the-art technology including nuclear perfusion imaging for the evaluation of heart disease for emergency department patients. The CPC has its own nuclear imaging machine in the Emergency Department that allows patients to get a stress test throughout the day, reducing their length of hospital stay.

Roughly 1,400 patients get stressed in a given year, making Yale-New Haven Hospital Chest Pain Center one of the busiest and more efficient centers in the region. Stress tests are carried out from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. including weekends. Five to 10 percent of CPC patients are ruled in with positive markers or have a positive stress test. These patients are further managed by the team of emergency physicians and cardiologists in accordance with the latest AHA guidelines.