NEWS
RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Bobbie Boyd, Director of Public Relations
& Community Outreach
Advanced Cardiac Specialists
Cell Phone: (602) 570-7069 E-mail:
bobbie.boyd@acs-im.com
TWO SITES IN STATE RECEIVE ACCREDITATION
OF ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY LABS
Six Consecutive Years of
Voluntarily Meeting
Benchmark Standards of Patient
Care
Gilbert, Arizona (March 26, 2005) –
Advanced Cardiac Specialists (ACS) has again met the benchmark for patient care
and stringent quality assurance standards necessary to obtain its third accreditation with the
Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography Laboratories
(ICAEL). Mayo Clinic, with its first
accreditation, joins ACS as the only two sites in the state accredited for all
three modalities of testing; i.e., echocardiography, stress echocardiography
and transesophageal echocardiography.
Echocardiography laboratories
throughout the country are recognizing the need to provide the public with a
standard benchmark of quality. Advanced
Cardiac Specialists’ (ACS) echocardiography laboratories were one of the first
140 echocardiography laboratories in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico
to be recognized through ICAEL accreditation in October 1999. At that time, it was one of only two such
accredited sites in the entire state of Arizona. In 2002 the ACS lab was recognized through re-accreditation as
one of only four sites in the entire southwest that are accredited in all
three modalities of testing in adult echocardiography, i.e.,
echocardiography, stress echocardiography and transesophageal
echocardiography. This elite group
comprised Advanced Cardiac Specialists, AZ; Stanford University Medical Center,
CA; Scripps Clinic, CA; and Cardiodiagnostics, CO.
Patients
may call the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography
Laboratories (ICAEL) to learn which laboratories have voluntarily taken the
initiative to apply for and receive accreditation. (Telephone: (410) 872-0100 or 1 (800) 838-2110; web site:
www.icael.org).
Accreditation
is a relatively new process for echocardiography laboratories that wish to
voluntarily meet a benchmark level of quality care. It means that the facility has been reviewed by an independent
agency; i.e., ICAEL, and has been recognized for its commitment to quality
testing for the diagnosis of heart disease through echocardiography. The ICAEL was established with the support
of the American College of Cardiology, the American Society of Echocardiography
and the Society of Pediatric Echocardiography, to provide a peer review
mechanism to encourage and acknowledge the quality of echocardiographic
diagnostic evaluations by a process of voluntary accreditation. The ICAEL is a non-profit organization that
is dedicated to ensuring industry standards of patient care in cardiac
ultrasound, in terms of equipment used, technical staff abilities and the
training, experience and interpretative skills of physicians.
One American dies every
32 seconds of cardiovascular disease, disorders of the heart and blood
vessels. Cardiovascular disease is the
leading cause of death in the United States, costing society over 83.7 billion
dollars each year in health services, medications and lost work time due to
disability. Cardiac structure and flow
information provided by echocardiographic testing is critical in the detection
and management of many types of heart disease. This method of noninvasive
testing by ultrasound has become one of the standard diagnostic tools in
cardiology today. It is estimated that
over 10 million echocardiograms are performed annually in the United States.
Advanced Cardiac Specialists is a statewide network of cardiology and internal medicine physicians based in Phoenix, Arizona with Robert M. Siegel, M.D. as Medical Director and Chief of Cardiovascular Services. Additional information is available by calling (480) 926-6990.