How Primary Care Manages the Patient with Acute Chest Pain

Objective: Chest pain is a common complaint among primary care patients. Primary care clinics are limited in their ability to differentiate acute cardiac chest pain from chest pain due to other causes. This is a case analysis exploring the management of a primary care patient with chest pain from clinic to emergency room treatment to return office visit. Methods: Case analysis of a primary care patient. The electronic health record was used to obtain information from the clinic visits and the emergency room records. Results: The primary care patient went to the emergency room for acute chest pain and was diagnosed with anxiety. Conclusions: Primary care providers should use a combination of chest pain algorithms, clinical assessment tools, electrocardiograms and clinical judgment. Even with these tools it remains difficult to predict the outcomes of primary care patients who present to clinics with acute chest pain.