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Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley’s Livermore campus last week celebrated the official opening of its new Byers Eye Institute, the East Bay counterpart to its facility of the same name in Palo Alto.
Named for its lead donors, Brook and Shawn Byers, the facility is dedicated to combating blindness and preserving sight. The Byers Eye Institute comprises multiple care centers, including an advanced diagnostic imaging center, an eye laser center, comprehensive ophthalmology and optometry services, ophthalmic and neuro-ophthalmic specialists.
To celebrate the new Livermore location, Stanford hosted a tour on July 13 attended by community leaders including Mayor John Marchand, City Manager Marianna Marysheva and Livermore Valley Chamber of Commerce Interim CEO Sherri Souza as well as Brook and Shawn Byers and officials within the Stanford Health Care system.
“Legitimately, this is world class ophthalmology care. There is nowhere on the planet that will be able to give the same kind of ophthalmology care unless you drive across the bridge to Palo Alto,” said Rick Shumway, president and CEO at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley, during the event.
The clinic is located at 1133 E. Stanley Blvd., where it occupies 3,000 square feet between the first and second floors in suites 117 and 209. Each suite contains a reception area and exam rooms featuring state of the art equipment.
“We’ve got the highest end equipment, diagnostics and therapeutics. We’re going to be providing, initially, oculoplastics which is eyelid and orbit, including complex orbital cancer care,” said Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, professor and chair of ophthalmology at the Byers Eye Institute at Stanford University.
“We’re going to be providing high-end glaucoma care and the surgeries associated with that and high-end cornea care and the surgeries associated with that. Also, we’ll very quickly then build in ocular inflammatory diseases called uveitis, we’ll build in adult strabismus when the eye muscles don’t line up right and eventually we’ll really roll out everything,” he added.
The suites that are now home to the Byers Eye Institute in Livermore were previously primary care offices but had been vacant for some time before being transformed into the ophthalmology center, according to Stanford officials.
The new clinic had already started seeing patients as of last week. The three physicians starting out as main anchors in Livermore include Wen-Shin Lee, Clara Men and Bethlehem Mekonnen.
“The interesting thing about this particular clinic is that it represents the best that Stanford has to offer; it connects it directly to our community. But what’s unique here is that this is an extension of the Byers Eye Institute in Palo Alto,” Shumway told the Weekly.
“If you’re a patient here and you’re seeing the faculty physicians here, what ends up happening is it’s this huge ecosystem and so you can move back and forth very seamlessly, they’re very collaborative, it’s one practice. So it’s as if you were in Palo Alto,” he added. “It’s really the kind of service that is uniquely Stanford, and it’s the kind of service that we continue to try and build and grow here in our community so that people can access it here.”
Goldberg echoed similar sentiments, noting that increasing accessibility and collaboration are the two key pillars of the new facility.
“I would emphasize two points — one is access to high-quality, sub-specialty care, and the second is collaboration with community providers: eye care providers, primary care providers, endocrine doctors who see diabetic patients and all the community providers to help provide support for the patients who need it,” he said.
