In 1959, Lester R. Sauvage, MD founded the Reconstructive Cardiovascular Research Laboratory as a branch of Providence Seattle Medical Center. The center was renamed The Bob Hope International Heart Research Institute in 1980, and in 1988 renamed the Hope Heart Institute.

In 1963, the world’s first successful experimental coronary artery bypass graft operation using the patient’s own vein as a bypass graft was accomplished at the Hope Heart Institute. In 1967, Dr. Lester R. Sauvage performed the first ‘bloodless’ open-heart surgery in the Northwest on a patient whose religious beliefs precluded the acceptance of blood transfusions.