Oregon Public Broadcasting

It’s Oregon’s third most populated county, but if you have a heart attack in Clackamas County, you’ll get transported to a hospital in another county for treatment.

This is process informally know as “drip & ship” says Dr. Richard Strauss, a cardiologist for Kaiser Permanente.

“You give them clot busting medication in an I.V., and immediately get them in an ambulance and ship them to an advanced center for immediate angioplasty,” says Strauss.

Strauss says this will all change with the opening of Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Heart and Vascular Care in the Sunnyside Medical Center. 

Dr. Strauss says the new heart center will especially benefit people living in Clackamas County.  That’s because it’s crucial to treat heart attack victims quickly.

“With each passing minute, muscles in the heart start to die,” says Strauss.  “So if you open up an artery and it’s been closed for six hours, that muscle is gone and will turn to scar tissue and will never function again.  We know the single most important predictor of your longevity after a heart attack is how much muscle you lost at the time of the heart attack.” 

The new heart center will also be able to deal with increasingly complex medical procedures.

“Now people have had one bypass maybe at age 60,” says Strauss.  “Another one maybe at 75, then they might even need a third one or by that time maybe a valve goes bad and they need another open heart surgery.  We’ve been able to keep people alive a lot longer, thus increasing the complexity of the intervention.”

A Kaiser Permanente spokesman says another reason for opening the center is the growing population in Clackamas County. 

The population in Clackamas County is growing about two percent faster than the rest of the state, according to U.S. Census figures. 

For the population of baby boomers in particular, heart disease is a major concern.  The Oregon Department of Human Services reports that 84-percent of all heart disease hospitalizations in Oregon involved people over 55.

Heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Oregon.  Cancer is the first.

Another concern for medical officials is the obesity epidemic in Oregon.  More than 25 percent of Oregonians are obese, according to state estimates.  Diabetes is also on the rise.

“Obesity and diabetes are the substrate for a large percentage of coronary disease,” says Strauss. “While the baby boomers may be a healthier generation, the generation following them is not.”

Strauss says there will undoubtedly be a greater need for the new heart center as the population of Clackamas County continues to grow.

The new Kaiser Permanente heart care center is part of a $300 million addition to the Sunnyside Medical Center.  It has three operating rooms, a testing lab, and an observation unit. 

Kaiser Permanente says the center will employ about 150 people when it’s fully operational this fall.