Chest Pain Unit at the Klinikum Dritter Orden

The Chest Pain Unit at Klinikum Dritter Orden is available via our accident and emergency department (A&E) round the clock, 365 days a year for patients with acute chest pain. The unit provides optimum care under cardiological supervision with diagnostic methods and treatment targeted to treat the specific acute clinical entity. Acute chest pain may be a manifestation of a number of conditions, some of them life-threatening, so an immediate response based on a precise plan of action and in accordance with the latest guidelines is crucial.

Acute heart attack patients are referred immediately upon arrival in A&E to Nymphenburg Heart Catheterisation Laboratory, where a 24-hour on-call service ensures that cardiac catheterisation, balloon dilatation and stent implantation can take place at very short notice. Further treatment in the interdisciplinary intensive care unit with all the possibilities offered by modern intensive care medicine (monitoring, invasive and non-invasive ventilation, temporary and permanent pacemaker therapy, kidney replacement therapy) is under the responsibility of the cardiologists and intensivists at Internal Medicine Clinic II in cooperation with our anaesthetist colleagues. Other causes of acute chest pain (hypertensive crisis, pulmonary embolism, aortic rupture, stomach ulcer) are likewise discussed in close collaboration with radiologists and Internal Medicine Clinic I colleagues immediately upon arrival of the patient and treated in accordance with state-of-the art strategies. The facilities for comprehensive cardiological diagnostic work-up (chest and oesophageal echocardiography, computed tomography of the heart, aorta and lungs) and diagnostic endoscopy are available 24 hours a day.

Close cooperation with the German Heart Centre, Munich and Heart Surgery Department at Klinikum Bogenhausen is in place to enable a timely response when immediate heart surgery is required. Complex cases are discussed at regular conferences with the participation of all the disciplines involved in the individual patient's care. We also host periodic events to inform the general public, for example in the course of the annual Heart Week of the German Heart Foundation. The quality of care we provide for patients with acute chest pain at our hospital meets the latest standards in terms of medical expertise, personnel and organisation, as attested following review and certification by the German Cardiac Society (Chest-Pain-Unit DGK certificate) in July 2011.