Chest pain observation units.

The key to technologic assessment of the chest pain unit lies in the recognition of the unit's ability to optimize outcomes of an illness with high incidence, high acute mortality and significant chronic morbidity. The chest pain observation unit, as an adjunct to the emergency department (ED), offers health managers and administrators the clinical tool, first envisioned by Dr. Lown in the 1960s, to achieve improved quality and cost-effectiveness of acute chest pain management as health care moves into a new century.