GREELEY, Colo. (Aug. 4, 2020) – As much as Harold Buxman enjoys the company of the cardiology physicians at Banner Health, he’s looking forward to not spending as much time with them.

That’s made possible by a new heart procedure that was a team effort.

Buxman, 74, has had a heart problem for 30 years. He has atrial fibrillation, or AFib, a fluttering sensation in the heart with an unexpected acceleration of heartbeats. AFib causes the heart to quiver and not be as efficient in pumping blood to the body.

For years, Buxman managed his condition with medication. He worked varied shifts at Eastman Kodak for 36 years and said the coffee, power drinks and soda may have contributed to making his condition worse. When his heart went into AFib, Buxman said it raced around 170 beats per minute and his blood pressure spiked.

“In 2019 I was in the hospital about once a month,” he said.

Traditionally, AFib is treated by an electrophysiologist who may shock the heart back to a normal rhythm or perform an ablation where wires are inserted into the heart to destroy the problem tissue. Buxman had tried these approaches, but they had not worked for him.

Then Buxman’s physicians recommend a new approach to treat his AFib – the Convergent procedure. This newer hybrid approach uses a minimally invasive surgical approach followed by work done by the electrophysiologist. NCMC is one of four hospitals in the state to offer this approach.

First, Buxman had the surgical ablation and a month later he had treatment by the electrophysiologist. The combination of treatments did the trick and Buxman hasn’t had AFib since.

Shortly after the Convergent procedure, Buxman experienced slower than normal heart rhythms and received a pacemaker. Now, Buxman said he is happy being away from the hospital. Instead, he spends his time as a care minister visiting other hospitalized patients and residents of nursing homes.

North Colorado Medical Center is a fully accredited, private, nonprofit facility licensed in Greeley, Colorado, owned by Banner Health, a nonprofit healthcare system with 28 hospitals in six states. It serves as a regional medical center offering a comprehensive scope of community-based and specialty healthcare services for an area including southern Wyoming, western Nebraska, western Kansas and northeastern Colorado. It offers Emergency care, cancer care, heart care, orthopedics, inpatient and outpatient surgery, neonatal intensive care, obstetrics, pediatrics, rehabilitation, intensive care, lab and medical imaging, medical air transport and the Western States Burn Center. For more information, visit www.BannerHealth.com/NCMC.