Saint Mary’s History

Saint Mary’s began its legacy of caring for the community in 1877, when a few Dominican Sisters made an unplanned stop in Reno, on their journey from California to Kentucky. The Sisters stayed in Reno and built Mount Saint Mary’s Academy to bring education to the children of farmers and miners in the area. The academy would eventually become Sisters’ Hospital, as the rapidly growing community was in dire need of quality, caring healthcare.

In 1908 Sisters’ Hospital opened its doors, with just two nurses on staff. Even in those early days of the hospital, the workload was overwhelming, and skilled help was hard to find. In response, the Sisters established a nurses training school that opened 1910. This schooling would later transition to the University of Nevada, Reno in 1959, through the Orvis School of Nursing.

As the area continued to grow, so did healthcare demands, so in 1912 a new adjoining facility opened, and Sisters’ Hospital became Saint Mary’s Hospital. From 1912 to present day, new additions and towers have been built, creating Saint Mary’s Health Network. The Center is a state-of-the-art, comprehensive medical and surgical facility able to address the community’s ever-changing healthcare needs.

A Network of Care and Services

The Sisters could have never predicted, in 1908, that Saint Mary’s would grow to be more than just a hospital. In fact, our network today consists of more than 10 healthcare facilities throughout the Truckee Meadows. All of the network, including a highly recognized health plans division and a thriving philanthropic foundation, work to deliver the highest quality care to a region encompassing northern Nevadan and northeastern California.

Today, we look to the future with the foresight of leaders and a firm commitment to quality care for our community. Saint Mary’s has touched millions of lives throughout its years of service. As we continue to live the mission begun by the Dominican Sisters so many years ago, Saint Mary’s is proud to be recognized by our community as the area’s most-preferred healthcare provider.

Prime Healthcare Services History

Prime Healthcare Services acquired Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville, California in January, 2001 in order to save it from closure. After restoring Desert Valley Hospital to the strong community hospital it had been, Prime Healthcare began to look for other opportunities to save distressed hospitals from closure. In 2004, Prime Healthcare acquired Chino Valley Medical Center from bankruptcy. In 2006, Prime Healthcare saved Sherman Oaks Hospital from the same fate. As a result of the purchase of Sherman Oaks Hospital, Cal-Mortgage, a division of OSHPD, was saved from having to pay out at least $17 Million on bonds that the State of California had guaranteed.

Since acquiring Sherman Oaks Hospital, Prime Healthcare has acquired 15 more hospitals, including four hospitals in 2012 in Texas, Philadelphia, and Nevada. Like Saint Mary’s, Chino Valley, and Sherman Oaks, many of these hospitals were in distress and on the verge of closure. For example, Prime Healthcare acquired Paradise Valley Hospital shortly after the Adventist Health’s Board of Directors had made the difficult decision to close the hospital due to mounting losses and became the licensed operator of Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, California on 10 days notice so that the hospital could remain open.

Today, Prime Healthcare Services owns 15 acute care hospitals with 2,625 licensed beds in California and the Prime Healthcare Services Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, owns 3 acute care hospitals in California with 389 licensed beds. The Prime Healthcare Services Foundation did not pay for these hospitals, but instead the hospitals were donated debt-free to the foundation by Dr. Prem Reddy, MD, FACC, FCCP, chairman, president and CEO of Prime Healthcare Services.

The 18 hospitals employ over 15,000 people and have more than 3,500 independent physicians who serve on the medical staffs of the hospitals. Above all else, Prime Healthcare is committed to the delivery of quality healthcare to all members of the community and is a recognized leader in the delivery of quality healthcare. Among other things:

• Prime Healthcare has been recognized in 2012 and 2013 as a Top 15 Health System in the United States by Truven Analytics (formerly Thompson Reuters) based on quality measures and patient satisfaction. It is important to note that a hospital system cannot request to be included in the study and does not pay anything to be in this study.
• Prime Healthcare was recognized as a Top 10 Health System in 2009. Thomson Reuters expanded the award from 10 systems to 15 systems in 2011 so that it could have three categories, large, medium, and small and Prime Healthcare was included among the medium systems in 2011.
• Saint Mary’s Hospital, Prime Healthcare’s first hospital, has been recognized as a Top 100 Hospital in the Nation by Thomson Reuters six times, including in 2012.
• West Anaheim Medical Center has been recognized as a Top 100 Hospital in the Nation three different times by Thomson Reuters since being acquired by Prime Healthcare in late 2006.-Montclair Hospital Medical Center was recognized twice as a Top 100 Hospital in the Nation in 2009 by Thomson Reuters, and Garden Grove Hospital Medical Center, Chino Valley Medical Center, and Centinela Hospital Medical Center have also been named Top 100 Hospitals in 2012.
• This past fall, Joint Commission, the largest Medicare accreditation agency, recognized 9 of the 11 Prime Healthcare hospitals that are accredited by Joint Commission as Top Performers on Key Quality Measures. This puts these hospitals among the top 14% in the Nation.