The advent of Solano County’s first center for heart surgery and specialized vascular treatments simply underlines NorthBay Healthcare’s mission and promise to bring advanced medicine close to home.

In this issue of Wellspring, we present a comprehensive look at the skilled professionals who work in state-of-the-art facilities to deliver life-saving heart and vascular medicine.

Our friends, neighbors and family faced long-distance medical care before the establishment of the NorthBay Heart & Vascular Center. In cardiac care they say “time is muscle,” which means the longer it takes to get a patient to a heart center, the more damage will be done to the heart muscle. Too many patients could not survive the delay.

NorthBay’s program includes the county’s first accredited Chest Pain Center and the latest in vascular intervention techniques in our recently upgraded, state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization lab. It also boasts Northern California’s most modern, most technologically advanced cardiac operating room. It also comprises the top cardiac surgeons in the region supported by a trained and highly skilled clinical staff—from the emergency room to the operating room to recovery and beyond.

Creating the Heart & Vascular Center took the total commitment of the entire hospital system—a dream conceived 20 years ago that has now come true. Our achievements in this arena come amid the backdrop of the most ambitious—and at times most acrimonious—national healthcare debate of the century. The two cannot be separated.

Will the new healthcare system being reconstructed in Washington support non-profit, community hospital systems such as ours as we strive to advance medicine close to home? We certainly hope so. The system that underpays California hospitals for those covered by Medicare cannot be extended to other government-run programs. If they do, physicians and community-based hospitals cannot continue to care for everyone who comes to them.

The challenge we face here at NorthBay Healthcare is sustaining the advanced medical programs we have made a huge effort to create. And, of course, to build new ones such as the NorthBay Heart & Vascular Center.