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Long Beach Port Funds Cardiopulmonary Lab

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The Port of Long Beach has awarded more than $600,000 to the Long Beach Comprehensive Health Center (LBCHC) to establish a cardiopulmonary lab that will benefit patients from underserved Long Beach communities. The lab is scheduled to open the first week of March. 

The cardiopulmonary lab is one of several projects funded by the port in 2012 through its Community Mitigation Grant Programs. The port gave a total of $5 million to medical centers, clinics, hospitals and senior facilities, among others.

Funds are generated through port construction projects, such as the Middle Harbor Redevelopment and Gerald Desmond Bridge Replacement. The program is designed to offset some of the negative impacts of development and port operations that cannot be completely eliminated with current technology. 

Other programs funded by port grants include mobile clinics for the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America and St. Mary Medical Center, air filters for Miller Children’s Hospital and asthma monitoring at Westside Neighborhood Clinic.

LBCHC is part of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services and annually serves 25,000 patients who generate 80,000 outpatient visits. The new lab will allow doctors to treat potential cardiopulmonary patients on site, instead of referring them to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Harbor City for testing. This will cut the critical time between symptoms and treatment for thousands of patients.

The port’s $661,318 grant allowed LBCHC to convert a surgical equipment sterilization room to a lab equipped with an echocardiogram machine that detects heart damage, a treadmill, an EKG machine that monitors heart activity and a spirometer that measures respiratory function.

“The new Heart Station will potentially save lives by helping patients receive faster diagnostic tests,” said Dr. Tyler Seto, MD, associate medical director of LBCHC. “It was a tremendous effort and without the port grant, this project would never have happened.”
 

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