PORT ANGELES — A $170,000 donation from the Olympic Medical Center Foundation will fund a purchase to increase the hospital’s ability to meet a rising demand for a critical cardiac diagnostic test.
The donation presented to Olympic Medical Center commissioners Wednesday evening will purchase another cardiac ultrasound system, used to take echocardiograms, as well as another echocardiogram table, said Leonard M. Anderson, director of the OMC Heart Center.
“We’re dealing with a higher demand for cardiac ultrasounds in the area,” Anderson said.
“Given the budget at the hospital,” the purchase of an additional machine “was not going to happen immediately,” Anderson said. “The foundation stepping in to fund this need improves care and helps us meet the demand from the community for this essential test.”
An echocardiogram is a key diagnostic test for cardiac patients, he said. Cutting the wait time for the test means patients can get care more quickly.
This machine, the sixth cardiac ultrasound system at OMC, and the donation will cover both the cost of the machine and the special table needed to use it, Anderson said.
“It will reduce waiting times for echocardiograms and also will cut the number of people who have to travel out of area for echocardiograms,” he explained.
The OMC Heart Center conducts between 500 and 550 echocardiograms a month now, Anderson said, and the demand has been increasing, both due to an aging population and an increased number of providers.
Cardiac providers now include four physicians — the newest having arrived in April — two physician assistants and an internist who is charge of the cardiac clinic, Anderson said.
“The community needs them,” Anderson said. “We’ve been running short for a number of years.”
The hospital is dealing with an ongoing backlog in the post-COVID era.
“We’re still catching up,” Anderson said.
In addition, some patients are suffering cardiac complications from the strain of having had COVID.
Personnel has been an ongoing issue as well. Providers are being added to the hospital roster, but diagnostic medical sonographers, the trained technicians who conduct the echocardiograms, are in short supply nationwide, Anderson said.
The two-year training programs are limited in Washington state and are not available at Peninsula College, he added.
“The goal is to have all six systems working all the time,” Anderson said.
Bruce Skinner, OMC Foundation executive director, presented the donation to hospital commissioners.
“The hospital is not making capital purchases right now so this was very much needed,” Skinner said later.
The donation was largely funded through the Red, Set, Go! Heart Healthy Luncheon on Feb. 23, Skinner said.
The OMC Foundation has contributed more than $10.8 million to Olympic Medical Center through fundraisers and individual donors.
The next OMC Foundation fundraiser will be the Sonny Sixkiller UW Husky Legends Golf Classic on July 25-26 at 7 Cedars Hotel and Casino and Cedars at Dungeness Golf Course. Following that will be the Harvest of Hope dinner at the Guy Cole Events Center in Sequim on Sept. 28. The last fundraiser of the year will be the Festival of Trees at the Vern Burton Community Center in Port Angeles from Nov. 29 to Dec. 1.
For more information, see www.omhf.org or call 360-417-7144.
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Leah Leach is a former executive editor of Peninsula Daily News.
