(Bethesda, MD, January 3, 2007) - Former Suburban Hospital Trustee Donald S. Orkand and his wife Kim L. Orkand have generously donated $1 million to establish the Orkand Center for Interventional Cardiology. This gift will support the acquisition of new equipment and other operating needs of Suburban Hospital’s new angioplasty service, which opened last spring and was expanded in September with the addition of three new state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization suites.

The Orkand Center for Interventional Cardiology is one of several new facilities recently opened as part of the NIH Heart Center at Suburban Hospital. In addition to state-of-the-art cardiac surgery and elective angioplasty, the NIH Heart Center at Suburban Hospital provides easy access to advanced cardiovascular treatments available in only a handful of medical centers in the region.

The Orkand Center for Interventional Cardiology features three new all-digital catheterization labs that provide outputs in the highest resolution available, film-viewing for doctors via high-security Internet access, and a 12-bed recovery area. Other facilities of the NIH Heart Center include two digitally integrated cardiac operating suites and private patient rooms in the newly renovated cardiothoracic care unit and the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Cardiology Center.

Dr. Orkand is a highly successful entrepreneur, having founded The Orkand Corporation in 1970 and, most recently, D.C. Ventures and Associates, which provides counsel to senior management on information technology mergers and acquisitions. In addition, Dr. Orkand has served on many corporate, professional, and academic governing bodies, including the Board of the University of Maryland Foundation and the University of Maryland University College Board of Visitors.

Dr. Orkand earned his Bachelor’s degree (graduating summa cum laude), Master of Business Administration, and PhD in statistics and economics from New York University. He studied under world-renowned quality-enhancement guru W. Edwards Deming, his advisor for both his master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.

# # #

Suburban Hospital is a not-for-profit, community-owned hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, that has served Montgomery County and the surrounding area for more than 60 years. Suburban Hospital is distinguished by a cutting-edge stroke program; level II trauma center; centers of excellence in cardiac care, orthopedics and joint replacement surgery, neurosciences and oncology; state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment tools; and affiliations with world-class institutions, including the neighboring National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins Medicine.