Photo courtesy of Carilion Clinic

Decorating the hallways of the sixth floor of Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital are quilts featuring the names of patients who have had heart surgery.

Every square tile includes the patient’s name and the date of surgery. Many also include a red heart.

The quilts, which are also hanging on the seventh, eighth and ninth floors of the Roanoke hospital, are a reminder of the cardiac program’s 30 year history.

As Carilion marks the anniversary this month, the hospital now has 74 of these quilts and is continuing to make new ones as more patients have heart surgery.

Carilion began collecting them in 1992 to celebrate a decade of surgeries and then renewed the project in 2002. For the past decade anyone who has had heart surgery at the hospital has been invited to decorate a fabric square to be included in a future quilt.

During the past three decades the flagship hospital for Carilion Clinic has become the busiest hospital in the state for several inpatient heart-related treatments and procedures.

Carilion hasn’t been alone in growing its cardiac services, as its chief competitor LewisGale Medical Center in Salem has also sought to build on its heart services.

Cardiac services are among the biggest aspects of both hospitals’ total inpatient business.

Read more about the competition and the growth in cardiac care for the region in this article. And check out how the hospitals rate in the quality of care here.