HBOT – Harch Hyperbarics Family Physicians’ Center – Marrero LA

Address: 5216 LaPalco Blvd
Marrero, LA 70072 Phone: (504) 309-4948 Fax: (504) 3924180 Website: http://www.hbot.com/

The Family Physicians Center (FPC) was founded in 1983 as a family practice clinic and minor emergency center. Within the first year it was obvious that an alternative site for hyperbaric oxygen therapy was necessary in New Orleans. Of the more than 30 hospitals in the New Orleans area at that time only one was equipped with hyperbaric chambers. Inpatients in need of HBOT could not be transferred to that facility due to the hospitals fighting over reimbursement. As a result, two monoplace chambers were placed at the Family Physicians Center. This became one of the first freestanding hyperbaric centers in the United States. Patients from the private sector as well as Charity Hospital were treated at FPC. The facility also began to accept patients for a variety of conditions that the hospital hyperbaric facility would not treat. Amongst the first patients in this category were divers with decompression sickness who did not achieve cure in the first few HBOT’s. This was the group in which Dr. Harch discovered that he could treat chronic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury patients followed and eventually adult and pediatric patients with 50 different cerebral conditions as well as other off-label diagnoses. The FPC was also the site of experimental treatment throughout the 1990s.

Dr. Harch is a hyperbaric medicine, diving, and emergency medicine physician who is a Diplomat of the American Board of Hyperbaric Medicine and the Board of Certification in Emergency Medicine of the American Board of Physician Specialties.
Dr. Harch's clinical experience through 2007 spans 23 years in hospital-based emergency medicine and 21 years of hyperbaric medicine.He graduated from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1980 and was awarded Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa status on graduation from college. He has trained in general surgery, radiology, diving, and hyperbaric medicine. Dr. Harch is the first President of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association (established in 2001) and President of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association Foundation. He has lectured and presented his work at numerous scientific meetings throughout the U.S. and overseas. In April, 2004 Dr. Harch was nominated and became a semi-finalist for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director's Pioneer Award.