When the American College of Cardiology (ACC) announced that its Chest Pain Center Accreditation 2.0 would trim mandatory documentation by more than 40 %, quality leaders across southern Nevada immediately saw an opportunity.American College of Cardiology
Within 48 hours, clinical leaders from Sunrise Health System, Valley Health System and UMC convened a joint steering committee to roadmap early adoption. Their objective: secure re‑accreditation of every Las Vegas chest‑pain site by midsummer 2026 while redirecting the time saved—estimated at 1 800 clinician hours per site—into bedside patient education.
The new model emphasizes outcomes (door‑to‑ECG, door‑to‑balloon, and 30‑day MACE) over process minutiae, mirroring value‑based‑purchasing incentives. Facilities that already feed data into the ACC’s Chest Pain–MI Registry can auto‑populate several elements, eliminating redundant spreadsheet uploads.
A case study from JFK University Medical Center in New Jersey, highlighted in the ACC announcement, projected $700 000 annual cost savings alongside a half‑day reduction in observation length of stay after adopting pre‑release criteria—benchmarks Las Vegas hospitals plan to match.
Local adaptations include:
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Unified EMS script: Clark County fire and ambulance crews will pilot a two‑question chest‑pain severity scale pushed directly to hospital dashboards, compressing hand‑off reports by 30 seconds per run.
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Digital consent: Legal teams are mapping Nevada’s e‑signature laws to ACC 2.0 standards, replacing paper consents in cath‑lab holding areas.
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Nursing upskill: ED nurses will complete a micro‑credential on high‑sensitivity troponin algorithms, enabling protocol‑driven discharge of low‑risk patients without cardiology consult.
Administrators expect a first‑wave site survey this autumn, making Las Vegas one of only three U.S. metro areas pledging full‑network compliance before the official October rollout.
“Streamlining doesn’t mean settling,” said system ACS‑coordinator Maria Galvez, RN, MSN. “It lets us spend more time at the bedside and less in binders—without sacrificing any of the metrics that keep patients alive.”
For a city that logs nearly 35 000 annual chest‑pain visits—many from tourists unaware of local EMS numbers—the pilot could become a national case study in balancing accreditation rigor with operational reality.