Valley General Hospital

Description

About Valley General Hospital
Valley General Hospital is Public Hospital District 1 serving East Snohomish County Since opening our doors as a public hospital in 1960 we have continued to meet the health care needs of the community including excellent emergency services growing surgical and specialty services and a familyfriendly birth center Our patient and familycentered philosophy combined with our commitment to advancing medical technologies has enabled us to provide you with exceptional care for whatever life brings

Mission Statement
We live our mission and values because we understand that the true power of healing lies not only in the tools and knowledge of medicine but also in the hearts of people

Mission
Working together we exist to serve the changing health care needs of our community We will provide personalized patient care known for quality and excellence with a healing environment through caring relationships

Vision
Our vision will be realized when

Patients family and friends have exceptional experiences at Valley General Hospital

Highly qualified engaged employees look forward to coming to work every day

Physicians voice their pride in being members of the Valley General Medical Staff

Our community views Valley General as an indispensable resource

Values
Pride
We pride ourselves in the services performed effectively and efficiently without compromise making the most of the resources entrusted to us

Awareness
We provide a supportive environment that embraces the physical emotional and spiritual aspects of health and healing

Trust
We are honest fair and dedicated in everything we do as the ideal means to protect overall safety as well as assure confidentiality and privacy to our patients their families and friends

Integrity
We ensure all tests and procedures are clearly explained and understood while meeting expectations for all measured clinical outcomes

Empathy
We are friendly polite and emotionally sensitive to each individual patient family visitor physician and fellow team member

Neighbor
We are a vital resource for and take pride in our community We actively support local civic and charitable organizations We focus on the prevention of disease and the promotion of health

Talent
We recruit train and retain quality physicians and support teams to deliver the highest level of service while encouraging them to grow and drive to pursue excellence in their fields

History

Valley General Hospital History
The Sisters of Mercy took care of the sick and poor from the earliest days of Monroe In September of 1892 they advised Snohomish County they were no longer able to do so

Consequently in June of 1893 the county built a twostory home for the ill aged and indigent on land the county owned and called it The County Farm and Hospital 40acre tract was crossed diagonally by the Great Northern railroad tracks The building faced north on the southern triangular portion of the tract near where Valley General Hospital now stands The woodframe building had 20 beds and cost 4500 The larger northern portion was the farm with a barn for cows and for the two horses used for plowing This area is where the Evergreen State Fairgrounds is now located Mr ML Mahoney was hired to run the county home care for and furnish medicine to them They did not handle contagious diseases Those who were able worked at the farm tending livestock or raising crops The farm produced and sold milk and ice cream and raised potatoes They also had hogs and chickens The castiron bell from the original building is in the Monroe Historical Museum

In 1909 a second twostory building the hospital annex was built in front of the 1893 building A staff of about seven or eight was employed to operate the facilities In 1925 a new county hospital a larger twostory stucco structure was built at a cost of 90275 that would replace the two ageing wooden buildings This hospital had 100 beds and fronted on Valley View Road now 179th Ave SE and was just west of the old buildings The first floor was for patients and the second floor was for the hospital and working staff Although occupancy was usually much less during one month during the Depression 148 were cared for there The original wooden buildings were demolished in the spring of 1929 The County Farm and Hospital was often referred to as the poor farmquot and operated until 1940 After Social Security was established and small pensions made available the farm operation was discontinued In 1941 the building was used only as a hospital and was called Valley View Hospital

In 1949 the county leased the building as a private hospital and nursing home and was now called Monroe General Hospital In May of 1960 Public Hospital District Nol was formed and in November of that year a bond issue for 385000 was passed to purchase and renovate the old hospital On February 1 1961 the name was changed from Monroe General Hospital to Valley General Hospital Since then the hospital has been vastly expanded The last trace of the old stucco hospital building was torn down in 1992 as Valley General Hospital continues to expand

Since the mid90s Valley General Hospital VGH has offered Specialty Suite availability to provide quottimesharequot space for nonMonroe based physician specialists to see patients on a parttime basis in Monroe Historically VGH has also leased out space on its second floor to Virginia Mason and Group Health as well as more recently to obstetricians a pediatrician an oncologist and a general surgeon

In 2002 several Monroe specialists began discussing development of new additional Medical Office space in Monroe Together they formed an LLC that purchased land from VGH and constructed a medical office building The resulting building on the southwest corner of the VGH parking lots legal name is Sky River Medical Building The MOB ownership is shared among a number of local and regional Proliance physicians local general surgeon local spine surgeon local obstetricians a new rehabilitation group and optometrist and ophthalmologist VGH has no MOB ownership interest however the hospital does have a right of first refusal to acquire the property if consideration is given to future sale of the MOB The MOB has been developed and financed independent of the hospital with the assistance of the Gilbo Corporation

The hospital has leased approximately 20000 sq feet of MOB space to locate several hospital outpatient services in the building These four leases included a Diagnostics suite to include MRI Ultrasound Mammogram and a small laboratory specimen collection and draw station b Rehabilitation and Sports Medicine c relocation of VGH Specialty Suites and an ambulatory procedure room for pain management and other hospital outpatient services d 50006000 sq feet to allow the MOB to include additional capacity for housing future physicians andor expansion and development As a part of the MOB project VGH also quotpreinvestedquot several activities for future hospital expansion these include a City of Monroe planning activities b current and future parking capacity requirements c road and intersection improvements d onsite surface water retention requirements

Closing of escrow of the land purchase agreement occurred in the fall of 2004 and construction commenced shortly thereafter The construction project has proceeded rapidly and smoothly facilitated by mild winter weather conditions Various suites in the MOB including the hospitals services should be open in late August 2005 with an Open HouseBuilding dedication planned for late September 2005