Mercy Medical Ctr Merced

History

In September 1921 a group of city leaders decided to construct a community hospital The board purchased the property in February of 1922 and opened the 20bed facility in 1923 By 1937 the hospital doubled its size It now had 50 beds and the grounds had been lowered to give a quotsunken gardensquot appearance Mercy later became incorporated on December 8 1948 and in 1949 the Dominican Sisters of Kenosha Wisconsin began to manage Mercy In May 1996 Mercy Hospital joined Catholic Healthcare West a system of hospitals ancillary facilities home care and physician organizations in California Arizona and Nevada Today this 115bed acute care hospital specializes in surgical services critical care laboratory radiology respiratory services and an accredited sleep disorder lab

In addition the organization in conjunction with UC Davis Medical Center recently opened the Mercy Cancer Center located in North Merced The center provides fullservice cancer treatments for those who have been diagnosed with this disease Services will include radiation oncology telemedicine services comprehensive disease management and prevention and education information

Community Campus

In 1873 Merced Community Medical Center opened on East North Bear Creek as a small one story wooden building For 31 years the hospital served the countys sick and indigent patients In 1904 a new facility was built on 15th Street and in 1939 a new wing was added for children and maternity cases The hospital continued to grow with the construction of a 11 million facility in June 1950 Further additions included an 83 million addition in December 1979 and the tower building In 1997 the county approved Sutter Health to lease what was recently called Sutter Merced Medical Center The 174bed acute care facility specializes in intensive care and emergency care cardiac obstetric surgical diagnostic and rehabilitative services and a childrens unit The hospital also provides a Family Practice Residency Program with UC Davis

Collaboration

Mercy and Sutter initiated a series of discussions in the fall of 1999 with the intent of finding the best direction to meet the hospital and healthcare needs of the citizens of Merced County Our hospitals faced combined potential investments of up to 200 million to replace existing facilities due to a variety of causes including legislation enacted after the Northridge Earthquake which mandates seismic survivability of hospitals These expenditures have created identical services in two locations severely limiting each hospitals ability to upgrade existing services or provide new specialty services that are not currently available in our community

These realities have surfaced the potential to build a single large hospital and achieve efficiencies that would support the addition of sophisticated medical services that are not currently available locally Costefficiencies also bolster the ability to provide top quality services to the countys indigent population And the expansion of more specialized services greatly enhances the ability to recruit additional clinical and medical staff to the area

A New Organization

Born On April 1 2001 Mercy Hospital and Health Services assumed the lease of Sutter Merced Medical Center bringing a new name in healthcare to our communityMercy Medical Center Merced With our new name comes a renewed promise to provide our community with the quality and excellence that youve come to appreciate from our hospitals Whether you choose our Mercy Outpatient Center on M and Bear Creek or our Community Campus on 13th Street youll find a renewed spirit and our promise to serve you with HEART Hospitality Excellence Attitude Responsibility and Teamwork

What the Future Holds

By working together Mercy employees volunteers and physicians will meet the health care needs of today while we enhance expand and create the health care system of the future Mercy is currently building a 196 bed replacement facility in North Merced located next to the Mercy Cancer Centeran affiliate of the UC Davis Cancer Network The new medical center is now open and offers the latest in facility design and technology