The Beat Goes On
New Campaign to Expand Cath Labs
Baxter Health has grown into one of Arkansas’ most remarkable health care success stories, thanks to leadership’s unyielding focus on providing a level of expertise in medicine and services not commonly found outside big cities.
One challenge of this success is the ongoing need to keep up with demand while maintaining a high level of medical services—from personnel to technology to bed space.
A new capital campaign, Heartbeat of Hope, is a prime example of this, as Baxter Health looks to expand its cath lab space to meet the growing demand for various services.
“Since I arrived here in 2017, this area has seen tremendous growth. We’ve had an influx of new residents and an increase in patient volumes,” said Dr. Patrick Tobbia, an interventional cardiologist. “We’ve added several providers since then, including two new vascular surgeons, multiple new cardiologists and two radiologists who all perform procedures.”
For the uninitiated, a cath lab is a hospital facility where minimally invasive procedures stabilize patients in various states of distress—from treating heart attacks to repairing faulty heart valves to performing cardiothoracic and radiological procedures. Baxter Health’s growing team of medical professionals must currently compete for space in the hospital’s two dedicated cath labs and one hybrid cath lab, creating a logjam for patients in need of treatment.
“If you do the math, you can see there’s a bottleneck,” Tobbia said. “It’s not that the doctor can’t perform the procedures—it’s that there’s not enough cath lab space. That means patients have to wait for a procedure slot.”
Making matters worse, patients who need these procedures often don’t have time to wait, Tobbia said, making the lack of capacity a life-or-death issue.
“If somebody’s having a heart attack, for example, we can go through the radial artery or the femoral artery using the cath lab’s X-ray-guided machinery,” he said. “We pass catheters all the way up to the heart. Or, if their arteries are blocked in the leg, we can guide toward the carotid. If there’s a blood clot or a blocked artery, we can unclog it using the cath lab.
“We do this day in and day out because we have a 24-hour STEMI program, an acute heart attack program. Anybody in the community who arrives within 90 minutes of a heart attack goes straight to the cath lab, where we save their life. Previously, these patients would have needed emergency bypass surgery—or they simply wouldn’t have survived.”
Recognizing the need for additional space, hospital leadership asked the Baxter Health Foundation last fall to develop a fundraising plan for expanded facilities.
“This project wasn’t in our 2024 plans at all, but when the hospital came to us, it was clear that with the addition of new physicians, expansion was something we’d need to get done in 2025,” said Sarah Edwards, foundation executive director.
Even with a clear need, the ask was steep—$2 million of the $4.5 million total cost. Edwards said it’s the largest capital campaign the foundation has ever undertaken, surpassing the last major campaign in 2021-22, which raised a then-record $1.7 million.
The foundation team wasn’t alone in embracing the challenge. As the year came to a close, major donors stepped up in a big way during the campaign’s quiet phase.
“We conducted the quiet phase over the last couple of months in 2024, and we’ve had a fantastic start. We ended 2024 with $1.5million raised,” Edwards said. “That just reiterates how amazing our community is. Whenever a need arises in health care, they always step up.”
The campaign received an extra boost when it secured a challenge grant that will award an additional $500,000 if the $2 million goal is met by this fall. Edwards said between that incentive and the importance of the project itself, she’s excited to see the response when the campaign shifts to public appeals.
“The cath lab will impact everyone in our community,” she said. “Heart disease is the leading cause of death in Arkansas and across the nation. This facility will impact our friends, our family, our neighbors and the communities we serve. This speaks to so many people, and we’re thrilled to help make it happen.”
Tobbia said as a physician, he’s grateful to serve a community that understands the importance of medical facilities and is humbled by the response so far.
“This isn’t about cosmetics or a vanity procedure room. This is truly a life-saving facility,” he said. “Expanding this facility is a crucial step toward advancing cardiac care in this community. It won’t be the last thing we build, but it will help us improve care for everyone in this area.
“It’s humbling to see the community’s response. It shows a lot of grace and understanding for why this needs to happen. Many of our donors have had friends, family and neighbors whose lives were saved in the cath lab. People here understand just how important this facility is.”
