Harry & Sally Porter Heart Center

Not long ago, about 400 Fairbanks residents with a heart-related problem had to travel every year to Anchorage or Seattle for treatment.

Now many patients can be seen here at The Harry & Sally Porter Heart Center at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital.

Patients still have to travel for some heart-related treatments, such as coronary bypass surgery.  However, the Harry and Sally Porter Heart Center facilities are more centralized, more efficient, and more patient friendly, according to Karl Sanford, associate administrator for Professional Services at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. “That’s really the essence of the Heart Center philosophy,” Sanford said. “It’s all focused on having cardiac care provided in essentially one location.”

“Cardiology changes the whole perspective of health care as it becomes an outreach effort,” Sanford said.  “We want to help people understand and recognize the symptoms of heart disease, in order to save more lives.”

Naming of the Harry and Sally Porter Heart Center:

The Heart Center is be named after longtime Fairbanks residents Harry and Sally Porter. Harry Porter helped found the Hospital Foundation and raise the money needed to build the Hospital in 1972. He has since served as a volunteer board member and is now a trustee emeritus of the Hospital Foundation Board.