People shouldn’t wonder whether they’re having a heart attack.

That’s the basic philosophy behind the opening of Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s Bob Billings Cardiac Evaluation Center. Hospital officials opened the $430,000 center in August to provide area residents a more welcoming and convenient place to receive cardiac treatment.

“We think there are a significant number of people who ignore chest pain because they think it is indigestion or they just don’t want to come to the hospital,” said Gene Meyer, president and chief executive of Lawrence Memorial Hospital. “What we’re trying to tell people is don’t wait. This isn’t something you want to mess around with.”

The message is catching on. Meyer said that in February the center saw 47 patients and that number is expected to increase. Meyer said that of the 47 patients seen, only six had health problems that required them to be admitted to the hospital.

“It is doing exactly what we intended it to do,” Meyer said. “It is a rule-out system. It is generally providing people good news by telling them it (chest pain) is not what they perhaps feared it was.”

The four-bed center is staffed by existing emergency room doctors and 12 nurses specially trained in cardiac care. Patients enter the center through the emergency department, but the center’s treatment areas are away from the noise and activity of the emergency department.

“We really wanted an area that would allow these patients to be in a quieter, calmer environment rather than being in the hustle and bustle of the emergency department,” said Janice Early-Weas, director of community relations for LMH.

Joan Harvey, director of the emergency department, also said the separation made it less intimidating for people to come to the hospital for a chest pain that they’re unsure of the cause.

“We’re really hoping this allows us to do more early intervention with these patients,” Harvey said. “The whole thing is we want people to come in and have chest pain examined when they’re having the pain, not a couple of days later when they make an appointment with their primary care physician.”

The center, though, will work closely with each patient’s primary care doctor, and when necessary, will call the doctor in for consultations, Meyer said.

“What we’re trying to get across to people, though, is that a quick and accurate evaluation is absolutely necessary,” Meyer said. “We did that in the emergency room, but this really takes us to a new level of emphasis.”

The center was named after Bob Billings, the late Lawrence developer who was the mastermind behind the Alvamar housing and golf developments in the western part of the city. The LMH Endowment Assn. raised the entire $430,000 needed to build the center at the 2003 LMH Hearts of Gold Ball.

“We really wanted to do something to honor Bob and sustain his memory,” Meyer said.