History of Hennepin County Medical Center
1887-2006

More than a Century of Leadership
City Hospital — General Hospital — HCMC

1887 Minneapolis City Hospital opens Dec. 1 in a rented house at 724 11th Ave. S. City physician James Henry Dunn is appointed superintendent. Daily cost is 89 cents.

1891
City Hospital opens a free dispensary (Outpatient Department) in City Hall.
Board of Charities and Corrections assumes management.

1893
City Hospital moves to the farm of former mayor George A. Brackett. The Brackett farm had several buildings which included a nine room brick house and three framed houses large enough for wards of twenty patients plus thirteen
rooms for private patient care.The farm was purchased by

the city for $100,000 and was located on the block bounded by what are now Portland and Park Aves., Fifth and Sixth Street. School of Nursing is established. Period of study

was one-and-a-half years.

1894
Tents are erected on hospital lawn for 20 victims of typhoid epidemic. With the new hospital full, 22 patients are sent to St. Mary's and Northwestern hospitals at city expense.

The first ambulance (horse and driver) is rented at cost of $1.50 per run. In 1900, a driver will be hired and a horse purchased.   The first ambulance

1895
Dispensary moves from City Hall to the stable on the hospital grounds.

1896
Patients are turned away due to lack of room.

1901
East Wing with 200 beds is built for $75,000.

1902 The first telephone is installed. Up to the mid-70s, no phones were located in the wards. Only one central telephone was located in the hallway at the supervisor's desk. This phone sent and received messages for the entire stations services.

1903 Pathology Department is established and the first laboratory opened. The course of study for student nurses was lengthened to 3 years.

The First Lab

1908

Early Years

In the early 1900s, staff was not required to wear masks or gloves during a surgical procedure. The X-ray Department is established.

The Drug Room

The Drug room was located in a small room in the

basement. The outer wall was unfinished and the foundation boulders were visible. The area was
remodeled in 1963.

1909
Outpatient clinic opened in the East Wing basement.

1910
Typhoid epidemic hospitalizes 222. Until 1912, hospital overflow is housed in rented Marcy School.

   1911
   Electric ambulance is purchased.

1912
Hopewell, a branch hospital with 100 beds for tuberculosis patients, opens in Camden.
Nurses' Home built, eight stories tall.

1913

Hospital is approved by the American College of Surgeons.

West Wing construction began, will be finished in 1915.

First dietician is employed. By the 1920s there were three kitchens: one for staff, one for patients on a regular diet and one for special diets. Doctors and Nurses had separate dining rooms and were served different food (this changed in the 1940s). Cost per meal was less than 20 cents. Providing food service to the many wards was difficult as the food was delivered in large quantities. Nurses had to stop and prepare the food for each patient tray. Years later individual trays for each patient was prepared in the main kitchen.

Nurses Preparing Food for Patients	Doctors Dining Room

1914
Scarlet fever and diphtheria epidemics hospitalize 846. The Construction of the Contagion Building begins.

Contagion Building Later Called Annex

Pediatric Contagion established as a separate service, no longer under the Department of Medicine. Social Services Department established, the first in Minnesota. Lymanhurst,

a branch hospital for children, opens at 18th and Chicago.

The building will later house the Sister Kenny Institute for

the treatment of polio.

1916
Total beds are now 900. Classes for X-ray training and laboratory training are offered by City Hospital and the University of Minnesota. Two nurses were sent to Providence, Rhode Island to acquire the Pasteur technique of nursing contagious diseases, in preparation for the opening of the contagion building at M.G.H. in 1917.

1918
Contagion Building, begun in 1914, is opened for patients

suffering from diphtheria, typhoid, scarlet fever, and pneumonia. One thousand fifteen are hospitalized during influenza epidemic.

All infectious disease cases were admitted there. There was a separate morgue and chapel to care for any deaths. Prior to this there had been a "Pest Hospital" in St. Louis Park, to care for infectious disease patients. It opened in 1881 and closed in 1918.

1920
Minneapolis City Hospital is renamed Minneapolis General Hospital and placed under new management, the Minneapolis Board of Public Welfare.

1921
Medical residency program begins; no pay until 1930. General Hospital receives a class A rating from American College of Surgeons. School of Nursing ceases in favor of University of Minnesota program.

1922 George Fahr, M.D., who worked with Einthoven in Holland to perfect the EKG, teaches staff at General how to make their own. Fahr will serve as chief of Medicine from 1925 to 1950. General Hospital is approved by American Hospital Association.

   Dentistry Clinic gets its first X-ray equipment.




    1923
    Minneapolis Public Library sends a part-time librarian to     provide books for patients.



 
Incubators from 1923 to 2002

Old Incubator 1923	1960s	Present Day 2002

1924     Female medical interns are accepted     (Edith Potter and Eunice Hilberts,     externe). MGH is the last hospital in     the city to do so.

1926
Minneapolis Grand Jury reports that even with 700 beds, General Hospital space is inadequate.

1927
When a new class of student nurses started, graduate nurses were hired to provide patient care. When the new group was assigned to floor duty, the graduate nurses were laid off and the students provided patient care.

1928
Patient records are cataloged for the first time; Medical Records Department is created.

1929
Overflow patients are sent to other hospitals; cost to city is $41,000. The Psychiatry Department begins diagnostic clinic.

1930
The Contagion Building is renamed the Annex. Wards were opened to general diseases. All of the patients with infectious diseases went to the city hospital.

Morgue	Morgue	Chapel

Next to the morgue there was a chapel where funeral services were held. The M.G.H.

X-ray technician training program was considered the best program offered in the Twin Cities. 1931 School of Medical Technology is established.

1932
Myrtle Hodgkins Coe becomes the first clinical nursing instructor at MGH. City planners present plan for new hospital "ample to the needs of the community for several centuries," 23 stories high, facing Portland Avenue.

1934
Norman Hotel is secured for nurses due to lack of housing space.



   1935
   School of X-ray Technique (later School of

   Radiological Technique) is established.

1936
The MGH Medical Record Department is rated as the best maintained in America.

1937
Medical staff view motion picture "Birth of a Baby" and deemed it too controversial to show patients; a birth control clinic is unanimously opposed. Instructors in surgical and pediatric nursing are hired.

Emergency Room 1938

1938
Occupational Therapy begins.

The Emergency department is placed under the surgery department and staffed with Interns.

1940
Sister Elizabeth Kenny lectures at General and University of Minnesota Hospitals. MGH is the only hospital anywhere to allow her to demonstrate her hot packing technique for treating polio.

Sister Kenny	Sister Kenny with Staff and Patient
Martha Lundgaard, CRNA, was hired at M.G.H. as a staff nurse anesthetist. She was actively involved in the School for Nurse Anesthetists at M.G.H. and later organized the School of Anesthesia at Northwestern Hospital. In 1988 she received the Agatha Hodgins Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Field of Nurse Anesthesia.

1941

Alfred Eisenstaedt photographs the life of an intern at General Hospital for Life magazine.   Ambulance runs to the city jail were frequent and interns provided medical care when needed. The photograher accompanied interns on these ambulance runs. Life magazine photos are displayed in the HCMC museum.
	"1941 Life magazine photo"

During World War II, Dr. Wesley Burnham accepted a commission in the army medical corps. He was chief of Orthopaedics in the 3000-bed hospital in New Guinea, caring for the South Pacific battle casualties. Later, Dr. Burnham will go on to serve on the HCMC teaching staff and treat patients in the Orthopaedic Department for 50 years.

1942
Seventy-three MGH nurses enter military service.

1943
President Franklin Roosevelt, an advocate of nursing, strongly supports the Bolton Nurse Training Act, which Congress enacts, establishing the Cadet Nurse Corp. It was a free three-year training program funded by the Federal Government. The program drew 179,000 enrollees. During the war Minneapolis General Hospital had student nurses on its many patient wards with minimal supervision.

1943 Cadets

1944
Penicillin is available but can only be ordered by chief of staff.

1945
Nurses’ Residence is renamed Harrington Hall in honor of Francis Harrington, M.D., MGH superintendent, 1937-39 and 1942-44. Harrington promoted changes in tuberculosis treatment that resulted in lower death rates. Five floors are also added to the building (to house the large numbers of students enrolled in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corp, students of M.G.H., and the U. of M nurses who staffed the wards at General Hospital during World War II). During World War II the majority of the graduate nurses left MGH to join the military.

1946

MGH adds 1,000 people to the staff during a polio epidemic. Fifty patients were admitted daily and 30 iron lung respirators were in use at one time.

1947
General Hospital School of Nursing is re-established with a three-year program. Mrs. Emilie Magdanz, R.N., is director. Christine Furman, M.D., begins the School of Nurse Anesthetists at MGH. Her students achieved the highest scores in the nation on national board exams in 1951. Ward secretaries are hired for nursing stations.

Nursing Students

1949 The Annex is expanded; the eight-story addition adds two elevators large enough for iron lungs.

1950
First males admitted to the MGH School of Nursing.

1951 First non-M.D. superintendent is hired: Kenneth J. Holmquist Medical Director position is created and filled by Thomas Lowry, M.D. Inpatient and outpatient charts are combined under a single numbering system.

1955
As the ethnic make up changes in the Twin Cities area, Georgia Nobles, R.N., director

of Nursing, institutes the interpreter system. Interpreter Services now require 64 interpreters at a cost of $2.1 million dollars to make sure adequate health care is

not lost in translation.

An explosion at Cargill Oil Extraction plant injures 14, 10 of whom are admitted to MGH.

1956
A fire starting in a Christmas tree at Doctors Memorial Hospital (Eitel Hospital) results in the death of eight patients and evacuation of the rest of the patients, many of whom are admitted to MGH.

1958
Frederick Hoffbauer, M.D., is hired as Chief of Medicine, a position he will hold until 1965.

William Jepson, M.D., is hired as chief of Psychiatry, a position he will hold until 1990.

The Medical Research Laboratory is built between Harrington Hall and the Annex. Medical research begins in the laboratory in 1959. The Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation is the parent organization of the Regional Kidney Disease Program, which has achieved an international reputation for its clinical and research programs. It is recognized for developing the first kidney dialysis program in Minnesota, performing the first kidney transplant in the Midwest and performing the first bilateral lung transplant in the world.

PAR (Post Anesthesia Recovery) opens adjacent to the OR, where patients will be monitored until responsive and stable. As in the past, post-operative patients were returned to the crowded patient wards immediately after surgery.

1959
Service League is incorporated; Eleanor Pillsbury invites 50 downtown leaders to lunch, kicking off a drive to save General Hospital.Vi Conn, a member of the Board of Public Welfare, was one of the founders of the Service League. She will serve as an active member, including president, and 23 years as treasurer, until 1994.

GH heat was provided by 5 water tube boilers, which were  fueled by coal until this year. Now 3 were converted to gas, with oil as the standby fuel. This was the first year that the hospital was able to have full operation of the A.C. (alternating current) power supply. Conversion from D.C. (direct current) to A.C. eliminated many irritating

electrical problems. The old equipment was replaced with excellent electrical equipment, this included the electric gastric suction machine which replaced the old three bottle water gastric suction (WANGENSTEEN).

Crowded conditions on the in-patient hospital wards provided for limited patient privacy	On a daily basis long lines of patients were waiting to register for care in the out-patient clinic area,

1960 A group led by Claude Hitchcock, M.D., begins studying atherosclerosis and organ transplants using baboons as subjects.

John Dumas, 1959-1963 MGH hospital administrator, was influential in protecting the survival of the county hospital. The state legislature approved the transfer of MGH from Minneapolis to Hennepin County during his administration. He worked closely with the city and county board, reaching out to prominent persons in the community for support of a new hospital. Due to his efforts, the Minneapolis Tribune printed numerous special issues, e.g., the Robert Smith series of articles and pictures about services provided by a public hospital.

1961 Chaplaincy is created under Rev. Lloyd Beebe.

The Clinical Lab is relocated to a remodeled patient area. Minneapolis and Hennepin County Mental Health Clinic is established. An X-ray film processing machine replaces darkroom. The Drug Room name changed to Pharmacy in 1962. Unit dosage was started.

	1962 Service League installs the General Store. Mary Croll is hired as the first Service League director. She will serve for 33 years. Personnel Department is established, with Bill Calguire as Personnel Officer, who completely changed the hiring process. Prior to Calguire, MGH applicants completed an application at Minneapolis’ Civil Service office.
Photo of Service League Volunteer and Patient

1963
Hospital operations transfer to County because counties are now major units

for administering public assistance. With expectations and support from HCGH administration, staff became more involved with responsibilities beyond MGH

hospital walls as a teaching unit for first health care providers. George Nass,

director of Safety & Security, organizes the first training course sponsored by

the Minnesota Committee on Trauma. The course was held twice a year from

1963-1975.

Paul J. Vogt, hospital administrator, had a great interest in emergency and ambulance services. The delivery of emergency care began to change, and Vogt is given much credit for early years of planning and accomplishments for these changes.

Addressograph equipment installed. Patients now are issued plastic cards, replacing paper ones.

The first kidney transplant in the central United States is performed by Claude Hitchcock, M.D., on February 13th. Five days later the kidney was rejected and the patient died. When the next transplant rejected, the doctors went to Seattle where they were using a "Sweden Freezer" dialysis machine. A machine was shipped to MGH and the patient was placed on Hemodialysis. Barb Little, R.N., operates the first portable dialysis machine at MGH.

John Jeffers, R.N., began working in the Dialysis Unit in 1963. He is now a Kidney Dialysis Nurse Practitioner, and continues to work with dialysis patients at HCMC.

1964

Minneapolis General Hospital becomes Hennepin County General Hospital.

Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation begins kidney dialysis. At left is Dr. Fred Shapiro, Medical Director of the HCGH Dialysis Unit, pictured along with HCGH intern Dr. Per Wickstrom. A five-bed unit opened in the HCGH ward in 1966 that included the dialysis equipment at the bedside.

A separate automatic pumping machine mixed the dialysis fluid and pumped it into the individual machines. An alarm was sounded if the mix was incorrect.

The Minnesota Legislature replaced the county coroner system with the Medical Examiner, turning the position over to a qualified physician. A new larger morgue complete with air conditioning and other improvements was opened in the hospital.

	The Hyperbaric Chamber is completed and opened. Robert Mick, veteran of 21 years in the submarine service, hired as first technician to run the hyperbaric pressure chamber.   Robert Mick at the Control Board Hyperbaric Chamber

Barb Little, R.N. was the first R.N. to assist with surgical procedures in the Hyperbaric Chamber.
	Barb Little setting up procedures in Chamber #3

Nursing Administration is separated into two sections. Jane Phillips, R.N. is in charge of inpatient nursing, and Olive Lenberg, R.N. is in charge of Admissions Emergency Department (AED).

The dietary department was remodeled, and the food continued to be brought to the station in heated carts. By the 1970s, complete meals were placed on individual trays and transported by large metal food carts.

1965
Richard B. Raile, M.D., Chief of Pediatrics since 1953, is named HCMC medical director, and Alvin L. Schultz, M.D., is appointed Chief of Medicine.

Alvin L. Schultz, M.D.	Richard B. Raile, M.D.

Myrtle Coe, RN, developed a course for training OR technicians at HCGH. This is just one of her many accomplishments. She was an innovator in the training of nurses and became known nationally and internationally as a leader in nursing.

1966

A four-bed Coronary Care Unit is opened under the nursing leadership of Donna Hoover, R.N., Medical Nursing Supervisor. It is the first such unit in the region.

The Cardiac Cath lab is also opened, with A. M. Richards, M.D., as medical director, and Jan Roberts, R.N., as the first nurse; she served in the hospital's cath lab for 28 years.

The Department of Dentistry and the Unversity of Minnesota worked out an affiliation agreement between the U of M and Hennepin County General Hospital. The affiliation included additional clinical experience in the outpatient clinic and the emergency room, which allowed the rotating students immediate involvement in oral emergencies. Dr. Norman Holte would become the first oral surgeon on the HCGH staff in 1969.

Mary Shaw is hired to develop the Nuclear Medicine Department. Mary became director of Medical Imaging and was on staff for 34 years. The Respiratory Therapy Department is begun with Robert Rothrum in charge.

Extended Care is offered to patients at certain nursing homes.

Jane Armstrong became the editor of the employee newsletter. It was called the “General Pulse.” The first hospital newsletter was called "The Open Wound" and published in 1933.

A six-article series on General Hospital -- the "County's Problem Child" -- was printed in the Minneapolis Tribune. It focused on the question of what would happen if HCGH were abandoned, and how well other area hospitals could or would take over its vital functions. The series was written by Victor Cohn.

1968
Neonatology ICU opens under the direction of Martha Strickland, M.D., and Julie Boran, R.N. A 12-bed Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) opens, with Marge Bergman, R.N., as supervisor. Bergman will serve in that capacity until 1996. The Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) and Coronary Care Unit (CCU) open with Donna Hoover, R.N., supervisor. Hoover will serve until 1978. A Pediatric ICU opens with two beds, Connie Benson, R.N., is assigned as Pediatric supervisor and retires in 2003. Richard Baker, M.D., and Audrey Kuhne, R.N., develop the first standardized “crash cart” used in the hospital.

Booz Allen Hamilton, along with the citizen's hospital advisory committee, developed a communications plan regarding the need for a new Hennepin County hospital.

1969

Bond issue of $25 million for a new hospital is approved 10-to-1.

First computer is installed, a Raytheon 703 for lab analysis. Medical Records goes to microfilm. Bioelectronics Department opens.

Robert TenBensel, MD, develops a child abuse treatment program that draws

national attention.

A nursing plan for stabilizing the critical admissions was initiated, under the direction of Hillie Prose, R.N., director of Emergency Nursing ER nurses will be trained in the care of critical patients, to accompany critically ill patients, to the inpatient stations treatment rooms and stay with them until they are stabilized. A one-year trial is to begin in 1970. In 1971, a room within the emergency department was designated for the care of the critical patient. This was the beginning and the development of the Stabilization Room the future level one. Nursing contribution to its establishment has long been recognized.

Hillie Prose

1970
A three-bed Neurology ICU opens. Marilyn Olsen, R.N., and Ronald Cranford, M.D., were responsible for the planning.

Janet Kaehler, R.N., and Donna Hoover, R.N., teach CCU classes to the nursing staff.

The Family Practice Building is erected in front of the main entrance on 5th St. The

School of Nuclear Technology is established. HASTE (Helicopter Ambulance Service to Emergencies) experiment begins and lasts one year.

Kidney transported from Boston patient to HCMC patient in Minnesota's first computer match through organ registry at UCLA.

1971
Bond election for additional $18 million is defeated 3-to-1. In six days, representatives of Hennepin County General Hospital and Metropolitan Medical Center negotiate a plan to share services.

Ernest Ruiz, M.D., is appointed Chief of Service, Emergency Medicine. Ramon Gustilo, M.D., Orthopaedics, is named chief of Orthopaedics.The Crisis Intervention Center opens, largely through the efforts of Zigfrids Stelmachers, Ph.D.

The Nurse-Midwife Unit, the first in the city, opens under the direction of Margaret Hewitt, CNM, and Donald Freeman, M.D. Margaret Hewitt was instrumental in establishing the first in-hospital Midwife unit. Frank DeMello, M.D., is HCGH's first epidemiologist. With many clinical infection reports showing significant pathogens on crowded obstetric and surgery wards, this required constant surveillance from the infection committee. In 1979, Jeanne Pfeiffer. R.N., will become the first nurse epidemiologist.

Photo of Dad and New Baby

The Ombudsman program begins with Nate Williams. A new state law decriminalized intoxication, making it illegal to jail individuals for drunkenness. A Detoxification Center is approved by the Hennepin County Board. Daniel Hertsgaard is named director, Audrey Logdson, R.N., clinical coordinator.

1972
Under the leadership of hospital administration, construction begins on the new hospital. Staff members from all hospital services actively participate with building plans.

HCGH-HCMC Administrator Bill Kreykes was involved in developing shared services plans with private hospital Metropolitan Medical Center and, later, with the plans for construction and move to the new HCMC facility. Bill Kreykes with secretary Sandy Hendrickson

	Tom Mattison, 1971 Associate Administrator, devoted his full-time efforts to the planning and development of the new hospital. He was the administrator for HCMC from 1977-1984.
Tom Mattison

	The Poison Control Center opens with Alice Lange in charge. In 1974, the center will hire Tony Manoguerra, Pharm.D.
Alice Lange

In 1975 Alice wrote the book "Friends and Foes in the Plant World" which was used and is still to date used by Poison Centers though out the U.S. Poison Control Center Logo 1972
	Friends and Foes in the Plant World

1973
Dr. Ernest Ruiz Director of Emergency Services develops the Emergency Medicine physician training program.The Red Door Clinic opens to provide service for socially transmitted diseases.

Audrey Kuhne, R.N., hospital complex night supervisor for many years, transfers to the ER to become the first Stabilization Room supervisor.

1974

Computers are installed in   the ER, eliminating the  familiar “green sheet,” which was the most important patient record   prior to computerization. Joe Patterson, Admitting supervisor, changes the registration procedures.

1975

HCMC is many things. Medical service, Surgical Service, Mental Health Center, Level 1 Trauma Center, Hennepin Regional Poison Center (part of the Poison Control system serving all of Minnesota) and more. It is a teaching and training hospital.

Intern Training 1975 Roger Fredrichs, Resident and Dr. Wickstrom

It is one of the few hospitals in the country that has always filled their quota of G-1s (interns). Approximately 45% of specialists in Minnesota have received all or part of their training at HCMC, 20% of General Practitioners in Hennepin County and 10% of doctors in Minnesota did their G-I year at HCMC. Physicians who trained here now practice in all 50 states.

Six-week advanced training course for emergency room nurses, sponsored by the University of Minnesota School of Nursing, begins at HCMC. The course is initiated

by Hillie Prose, R.N., Director of Emergency Nursing. Clinical training to practice emergency theories was provided by six participating hospitals. The MNA Board of Directors selected Hillie Prose to be recognized at the national level, for her leadership and accomplishments in the area of continuing education for emergency nursing,

working with both professional and consumer groups.

HCMC clinical instructor is Audrey Kuhne, R.N. for the emergency nursing training course.
	Audrey Kuhne, R.N.

Blake-Northrup Schools program to provide students with HCMC clinical emergency training begins. Richart Teien from the E.R. staff was responsible for student scheduling and supervision. The program achieves national recognition.

1976
HCMC moves to new Park Avenue address.

"From the old to the new"

• Minneapolis City Hospital, 1901-1920

• Minneapolis General Hospital, 1920-1964

• Hennepin County General Hospital, 1964-1976

• Hennepin County Medical Center, 1976 to present

HCMC's Burn Center provides care and treatment for all patients with burns in a central location. The entire staff has since been actively involved in community outreach and education.

The stabilization room now provides care in two well-equipped units.

1977

The Sexual Assault Resource Service (SARS) is developed at HCMC by Linda Ledray, RN, Ph.D. One of the
first Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner programs in the world, the SARS model has been replicated in every
state in the U.S. and in many foreign countries as well. Under Ledray's direction, SARS was responsible
for the founding of the International Association of Forensic Nurses in Minneapolis in 1992. SARS
provides complete care to all victims of sexual assault, including care and documentation of injuries,
assessment and prevention of STDs, crisis intervention and supportive care, and collection of forensic

evidence. SARS works closely with law enforcement, crime labs, courts and prosecutors, and advocates

to provide evidence-based state-of-the-art care to all Hennepin County residents.

Neurology creates Huntington's Disease Clinic. Echocardiography is introduced. Aphasia Center receives largest medical grant in history of the National Institutes of Health, $1.15 million.

"The General", a half-hour film about General Hospital written and directed by Tim Rumsey, M.D., is completed. In 1978, it received the highest award given by the District 4 International Association of Business Communicators.

Alexa Canady, M.D., who will become the first female African-American neurosurgeon in the United States, does her Neurosurgery residency at University of Minnesota Hospitals, including July-December at HCMC.

1978
The Post Coronary Rehabilitation Center (PCRC) opens.

JoAnn Champagne is the first female paramedic hired by the HCMC Ambulance Service.

1979
Balloon catheterization is introduced; HCMC is now one of 10 hospitals in U.S. that offers a procedure for clearing arteries.

ER installs teletype for phone conversations with the hearing impaired. Lorraine Rivera, Social Services, is named HCMC's first Indian Advocate.

Bryn Mawr Nursing Home fire brings 28 to ER.

Fast-track surgery is developed for multiple trauma patients.

1980
Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center is established.

Mossman Pager (beeper) system is set up, reducing overhead announcing.

Full-body CT scanner is obtained and shared with MMC.

Carol Holm Valentine, director of Medical Records, spends three months in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, as part of a team setting up a hospital.

April Estes becomes Director of Nurses at Pilot City Health Center which is a extension

of HCMC.

1981
Crisis Intervention Center establishes Crisis Home Program.

HCMC holds fifth anniversary celebration of move into new facility.

1983
Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center becomes the only accredited sleep center in Minnesota. Hennepin Faculty Associates (HFA), the practice plan for physicians of HCMC, is established. HCMC Clinical Labs computer goes on line. Medical Center admits its first AIDS patient. Hospitality Program to enhance guest relations begins.

HCMC Biomedical Ethics Committee is featured on the “CBS Evening News.”

HCMC and MMC install a new heat recovery system, with an estimated cost savings of $189,000 per year.

1984

John I. Coe, M.D., retires after serving for 33 years as chief of Pathology and 20 years as medical examiner for Hennepin County. During that time, he acquired an international reputation in forensic pathology. Dr. Coe was a member of the Pathology Panel of the U.S. Congress Committee in 1977-78 that investigated the assassination of President John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He developed a program at HCMC that set standards in forensic pathology throughout the region.

Medicare initiates diagnostic-related groupings and changes process of reimbursement.

Hennepin County establishes Metropolitan Health Plan, a health maintenance organization associated with HCMC. Its initial enrollment of 700 will grow to more than 30,000 over the next decade.

Nurses' strike hits private hospitals in Twin Cities, resulting in 30-40 percent increase in HCMC average daily census during June.

Construction begins on new 9-story parking facility across the street from HCMC.

Hennepin Faculty Associates (HFA), the practice plan for physicians at HCMC, begins operation with the mission of combining high-quality patient care with a commitment to superior physician education and relevant clinical and scientific research. HFA opens the Hennepin Multispecialty Clinic to serve a broader population base and provide additional clinic space for HCMC outpatient clinics.

HCMC adds the Burn and Wound Clinic. Seven months later, the Regional Tissue Bank opens and donor skin becomes available for use in skin grafts.

HCMC forms a regional consortium with other area health care organizations to fund purchase of an extracorporeal shock-wave lithotripsy mobile unit. Today, this Midwest Urologic Stone Unit travels throughout the Midwest from its home base at HCMC.

1985
Ambulatory Burn Clinic and Regional Tissue Bank open and provide added support to Burn Center services at HCMC. Red Door Clinic becomes one of the first sites for voluntary AIDS testing. Hennepin County commissioners approve building a helipad.
HCMC Psychological Training Program is accredited by the American Psychological Association.

1986
The HFA Board of Directors approves the establishment of an Office of Academic Affairs to be sponsored jointly by HFA and HCMC to encourage, promote, support, and coordinate medical education at HCMC.

An Urgent Care Center is opened next door to HCMC's Emergency Department (ED).

Family Medical Center (FMC), HCMC's new primary-care clinic located in south Minneapolis, opens in June at Five West Lake Street. The Family Practice Department moves its offices to FMC.

HCMC opens a helipad atop its new 9-story parking facility across the street from HCMC. The parking facility, which is connected directly to HCMC by skyway, also houses the Emergency Medicine Department, Ambulance Service, and EMS Training.

The Burn Center staff performs its first major "cultured" skin grafts on a patient who survives third-degree burns over 98 percent of his body and leaves the hospital nearly nine months later.

The Annex, built in 1914, is razed. Policy is approved to make HCMC smoke free on July 4, 1987.

1987
HCMC commemorates its centennial with the theme of "1887-1987: A Century of Leadership," and celebrates with a week of special events capped by a centennial banquet. HCMC becomes a smoke-free facility.

Alvin Schultz, M.D., retires as chief of Medicine after 22 years. Schultz led HCMC's Department of Medicine to achieve national recognition for the quality of its clinical, research, and education programs.

Jane Phillips, R.N., associate administrator and Director of Nursing, retires. Phillips was director of Nursing in 1964 when Minneapolis General Hospital (MGH) became Hennepin County General Hospital (HCGH). Under her leadership, nursing programs developed and grew along with new technology. She was instrumental in initiating methods to maintain staff that included MGH/HCGH nursing students, and in recruiting nurses for primary nursing and critical care and specialty units. Phillips was also involved in the 1972 planning for sharing resources and services with Metropolitan Medical Center (MMC), the first such public and private sharing of resources

in the nation, which became reality upon the move into the new HCMC in 1976. As director of nursing, Phillips was a key figure in that move of personnel, patients, and equipment.

HFA establishes an Acupuncture Clinic, which in January 1993 expands its services and is renamed the Acupuncture and Alternative Medicine Clinic.

1988
Metropolitan-Mount Sinai Medical Center (M-MSMC) is born when Mount Sinai Hospital merges with Metropolitan Medical Center (MMC), which was itself the result of a 1970 merger of St. Barnabas and Swedish Hospitals. St. Barnabas was Minneapolis' first hospital, established in 1871.

HCMC opens a $4.1 million Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center in cooperation with neighboring M-MSMC. HFA opens a new Geriatrics Clinic for residents at Augustana Apartments, a senior apartment complex located in the Elliot Park neighborhood.

Claude Hitchcock, M.D., Ph.D., retires after serving as chief of the Surgery Department for 33 years. He performed the first kidney transplant in the central U.S. and the first dialysis in the region, established a hyperbaric program at HCMC, and was a founder and longtime president of the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation (MMRF). Surgeons he trained established the Hitchcock Surgical Society in his honor; the organization sponsors a scientific meeting annually at HCMC. MMRF honors Hitchcock with the establishment of the $2.5 million Claude R. Hitchcock Research Laboratories.

1989 First hospital in Minnesota as a Level 1 Trauma Center

HCMC joins a select number of hospitals nationwide that have achieved verification by the American College of Surgeons as a Level 1 Trauma Center. HCMC is the first hospital in Minnesota to meet the ACS's standards of excellence in trauma care. The Orthopaedic Learning Center and Bioskills Laboratory open as a cooperative effort of HCMC, M-MSMC, and the University of Minnesota (U of M) to be used for the training and continuing education of orthopaedic surgeons and residents from throughout the Midwest.

1991
The national media spotlight focuses on HCMC as the center of a medical ethics controversy when the hospital becomes the first to seek court appointment of an independent conservator who would decide whether to discontinue life support against the wishes of a patient's family. The court rules the patient’s husband should be the conservator and treatment is continued. The 89-year-old patient dies three days later after being in a persistent vegetative state for more than a year.

Peter Setness, M.D., is named chief of Family Practice after serving as assistant chief for two years. Setness succeeds Stuart Thorson, M.D., who retired after serving as chief since 1983.

	HCMC begins providing helicopter patient transport as part of a joint venture with North Memorial Medical Center. The service operates under the name of NORTH/HCMC Air Care.
North/ HCMC helicopter

HCMC commemorates the hospital's 1,000th kidney transplant; the first was performed in 1963. HCMC acquires 600,000 square feet of space in the purchase of Metropolitan-Mount Sinai Medical Center, which closed in June 1991 due to declining admissions and inadequate reimbursement.

The Service League purchases the MMC Guild Service Kaffe Stugan and the Gift Shop, and saves the MMC Historical Library.

The A, B, and C Buildings become known as the Medical Specialty Center.

David Fisher, M.D., is appointed chief of Pediatrics, succeeding Dr. Raile. An inpatient Family Medicine Service is established at HCMC. Michael Popkin is named chief of Psychiatry, succeeding Dr. Jepson.

Oscar Lipschultz, M.D., chief of Radiology from 1957-1963 and staff member since 1930, dies. After he resigned as chief, Dr. Lipschultz remained in part-time service to HCMC for several more decades. He was honored in 1980 for 50 years of service.

Oscar Lipschultz M.D. 1938	Oscar Lipschultz M.D.1991

1992
HFA purchases the D Building of the former M-MSMC. HFA gains 178,000 square feet, and the purchase includes the surface parking lot to the east of the building.

HCMC's Emergency Department becomes the third in the U.S. to install EmSTAT, an innovative computerized patient tracking system that uses touch screen technology.

	Longtime Emergency Medicine Chief Ernest Ruiz, M.D., retires, had been chief since the department’s inception in 1971, helped establish the West Metro EMS System, and special training for ambulance staff and first responders. Dr Ruiz retires at HCMC and moves to the U of M to develop the Emergency Medical program in the Medical school at the University.
Ernest Ruiz M.D.

William Keane, M.D., becomes chief of the Internal Medicine Department. An Internal Medicine staff member since 1975, Keane also served as president of MMRF, executive director of the Regional Kidney Disease Program Clinical Laboratories, and professor of Medicine and Pharmacy at the U of M Medical School.

MMRF transfers ownership of its three-chamber hyperbaric facility to Hennepin County. The facility, originally constructed for research purposes in the mid-1960s, had become increasingly used for care of patients suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, smoke inhalation, arterial gas embolism, nitrogen narcosis, clostridial gas gangrene, or selected problem wounds.

HCMC's Psychiatry Department and HFA open an outpatient Psychiatry Clinic, which rovides medication, evaluation, and psychotherapy services.

1993

HCMC establishes an Occupational Medicine Clinic.The Miland E. Knapp Rehabilitation Center adds the "Easy Street" environment, a rehabilitation facility that simulates the real world. Mary Jo Peck, R.N., becomes program manager at Knapp Rehabilitation Center.

Easy Street

	HCMC's Emergency Medicine Residency Program, the second oldest in the specialty in the nation, graduates its 100th participant in its 20th year. Joseph Clinton, M.D., Emergency Medicine staff member since 1977, succeeds Dr. Ruiz as chief of Emergency Medicine.
Emergency Medicine Residents

HCMC and HFA open Hennepin Care-North Clinic, a new community primary care clinic in Brooklyn Center.

The Bloodless Medicine and Surgery Program is established at HCMC for adult patients who wish to avoid blood transfusions for religious reasons or to avoid the risk of blood borne diseases.

HCMC teamed with HealthSpan to participate in a U.S. Dept. sponsored hospital partnership with two hospitals in the former Soviet Union’s Republic of Moldava. The program was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and administered through the American International Health Alliance.

1994
HFA commemorates its 10-year anniversary.

The Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation moves from 337th to 288th among 2,075 organizations nationwide in the amount of research funding it received from the NIH in 1994. This figure puts it in the top 15 percent in terms of funding.

HCMC, HFA, and MHP establish HEALTHCONNECTION, a new nurse triage phone service that expands on the capabilities of MHP's initial service called HealthLine.

HCMC's Emergency Medicine Department physicians, as well as emergency physicians from St. Paul-Ramsey and the U of M, receive U of M faculty appointments following the university's establishment of an Emergency Medicine Program. The program is the culmination of longtime efforts by former Emergency Medicine Chief Ernest Ruiz, who is selected to head the program during its expansion period.

The importance of saving hospital heritage began in 1976 when the Minneapolis General Hospital/HCMC Historical Museum opens. It is the product of planning and hard work by primarily four people:

Hillie Prose, RN, retired Director of Emergency Nursing with 55 years of service to MGH, HCGH and HCMC; Audrey Kuhne, RN, who provided 52 years of service to MGH, HCGH and HCMC, serving as the night supervisor for the entire hospital complex for many years. In 1973, she transferred to the E.R. and became the first stabilization room supervisor, retiring in 1980; Donna Hoover, RN, Medicine Service Supervisor who was on staff for 30 years;and Harry Bloomquist who was on staff for 27 years and retired as Director of Hospital Buildings and Grounds.

The Minneapolis General Hospital/HCMC Historical Museum opens (City Hospital, Hennepin County General Hospital).

1995
HCMC is named in “America’s Best Hospitals” as one of the nation’s top 100 hospitals for excellence in nine specialty areas.

Melvin Bubrick, M.D., who served as chief of surgery for six years, is named president of HFA, succeeding Fred Shapiro, M.D. Michael Belzer, M.D., is named to a second five-year term as HCMC medical director.

Mark Martens, M.D., becomes HCMC chief of Obstetrics and Gynecology, succeeding Stephen Cruikshank, M.D., who served from 1986 to 1993.

Medical Imaging institutes new digital imaging system, a film-less system that permits faster, sometimes immediate, x-ray readings. Glenwood-Lyndale Community Clinic opens at 503 Bryant Ave. N., Minneapolis. Mary Croll, Service League director for 33 years, retires at the end of December, 1994. She is replaced by Judy Nordland, director of volunteers at Ridgeview Medical Center, Waconia.

Mary Croll

	Milt Ettinger, M.D., retires July 1 after 32 years as chief of Neurology. Ettinger initiated the development of the Huntington’s Disease Clinic and, along with Mark Mahowald, M.D., established the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center.
Milt Ettinger, M.D.

1996
Diabetes Center and Center for Senior Care opens in D Building.

David C. Anderson, M.D., acting chief of Neurology since the retirement of Milt Ettinger,

is named chief.

John T. Crosson, M.D., interim chief of Pathology since November 1995, is named chief. He succeeds W. Robert Anderson, M.D., who served as chief since 1984.

Raymond Gensinger, Jr., M.D., director of Medical Informatics at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, joins HCMC as director of Medical Informatics.

Jorge L. Rodriguez, M.D., former associate professor of Surgery and division chief of Trauma, Burns, and Emergency Surgery at the University of Michigan, is appointed chief of Surgery at HCMC, and vice chairman of the Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Hennepin Care - South Clinic opens in the HUB Shopping Center in Richfield.

HCMC’s Nurse-Midwife Service commemorates its 25th anniversary at HCMC. It was the first nurse-midwife service in Minneapolis, opened under the direction of Margaret Hewitt, CNM.

1997
Cancer Center opens. The Diabetes Center breaks new ground in diabetes treatment, the first ever to treat a patient hundreds of miles away over telephone lines using a modem and insulin pump.

Education Department is created to provide educational resources to all HCMC departments as needed. HCMC transplant surgeons perform 1,500th kidney transplant.

Robert O. Berkseth, M.D., Nephrology, is named associate medical director for Quality Management.

HCMC becomes the only medical center funded by the National Institutes for Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to determine the extent and ramifications of heart valve damage due to the diet drug fen-phen.

1998
HCMC surgeons use laparoscopic surgery to remove a donor kidney and then transplant it into the donor’s mother. This minimally invasive technique uses multiple small incisions and a video camera to detach and bag the kidney, then remove it through a two-inch incision.

Michael Stanley, M.D., Pathology, is named chief of Pathology.

HCMC is one of seven medical centers around the country testing VEGF, a drug that promotes the growth of blood vessels around heart blockages.

Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center celebrates its 20th anniversary with "Moonstruck 1998," a fundraising event for pediatric sleep disorders research, conducted by the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation.

HCMC’s Emergency Department phase IV renovation is completed, providing an additional 23,000 sq. ft. of patient and visitor space.

HCMC is ranked among the nation’s 42 top hospitals in Orthopaedics, Otolaryngology, and Pulmonary Diseases by U.S. News & World Report in its annual “America’s Best Hospitals” report. HCMC’s Department of Neurology Huntington’s Disease Clinic is designated as a Huntington’s Disease Society of America (HDSA) Center of Excellence, the second in the nation to receive such recognition.

1999

HCMC gets new leadership Mar. 1. Jeff Spartz, Hennepin County administrator since April 1996, is named HCMC administrator, and Chuck Richards, HCMC senior associate administrator, becomes chief operating officer.   They replace John Bluford, who served as administrator from 1993 to 1999, and Cathy Disch, who accepted positions at Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Mo.

HCMC receives the SmithKline Beecham 1999 Health Care Partnership Award for its role in the collaboration that resulted in the Glenwood-Lyndale Community Clinic.

HCMC is again ranked among the nation’s best hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s listing of America’s Best Hospitals. The Center for Healthcare Industry Performance Studies ranks HCMC in its top 50 among teaching hospitals for quality, specifically in lower mortality and length of stay rates.

The three-year, $10.7 million Emergency Department renovation/expansion project is completed in March. The project increased the size of the E.D. from 34,000 square feet to 53,565, including state-of-the-art equipment for treating trauma patients. The new STAB (Stabilization Room) now has four patient care units, double the size of the old STAB Room. Remodeling includes special care areas and new team centers. For five years, thru many stages, the project has dominated the life of Jackie Mlekoday, RN, nurse manager of HCMC ED.

2000
In April, HCMC leadership announces the creation of a new administrative structure, made up primarily of five Clinical Business Units (CBU): Surgery, Primary/Maternal and Child, Medicine, Behavioral, and Emergency. Providing support to all are Information & Technology Management, Environmental Support, and Clinical Support. Each CBU has physician and administrative leaders.

HCMC for the third consecutive year is listed among America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.

Michael Belzer, M.D., is appointed to a third five-year term as medical director. Chip Truwit, M.D., joins HCMC as chief of Radiology. Six of Minnesota’s “100 Most Influential Health Care Leaders,” as reported by Minnesota Physician, are from HCMC and HFA: Michael Belzer, M.D., medical director; Melvin Bubrick, M.D., HFA president; John McGill, M.D., Emergency Medicine; Michael Popkin, M.D., chief of Psychiatry; Jeff Spartz, CEO; and Michael West, M.D., assistant chief of Surgery.

Michael Belzer, MD.

Forty-one HCMC physicians are included in the national “Best Doctors in America” list. William Keane, M.D., Medicine chairman, was elected President of the National Kidney Foundation.

Service League funds pilot program for Healing Environment Coordinator.

The Ramon B. Gustilo Chair at the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation is established, honoring Dr. Gustilo, first chairman of the Orthopaedics Department. The chair creates an endowment to support research in orthopaedic surgery at the Orthopaedic Biomechanics Laboratory.
	Dr. Ramon B.Gustilo and Staff with Patient

2001 Chuck Richards, chief operating officer and longtime administrator who joined General Hospital in 1963 as director of Pharmacy, retires March 30. Moving into administration in 1967, Richards was at the center of most of the decisions of the medical center during the following three decades. He is succeeded by Lynn Abrahamsen, most recently executive director of the Neighborhood Health Care Network. Abrahamsen worked at HCMC in the early 1980s, helping develop the model and imple-mentation plan for Hennepin Faculty Associates.

HCMC for the fourth consecutive year is listed among “America’s Best Hospitals”

by U.S. News & World Report.

The Emergency Department in June becomes essentially paperless with the addition

of physician charting to its EmSTAT system. All patient information is now online, the culmination of 10 years of design, testing, and education by ED nurses and physicians. EmSTAT on August 28 also recorded its one-millionth patient visit.

HCMC’s Surgery & Procedure Center opened in October in the Medical Specialty Center. he $6.2 million center brings a variety of surgical and other specialties together in one setting convenient to patients and families.

Millie Caspersen, RN, retired supervisor of the Crisis Intervention Center, served on the Mpls. Police/Mental Health Round Table and the Hennepin County Mental Health Advisory Council. The Service League funds pilot for Family Safety Resource Center Coordinator.

2002

HCMC begins joint strategic planning with Hennepin Faculty Associates in response

to significant public program funding changes.

On January 29th, a new Cardiac Short-stay Unit is opened, with 3 outpatient and 8 inpatient beds and centralized state-of-the-art Cardiac Care services.

In August, Scott Davies, MD,, becomes Chief of the Department of Medicine and Hennepin Faculty Associates, and Medicine CBU Physician partner.

   HCMC is recognized for Fifth Straight Year on US News & World    Report's List of "America's Best Hospitals". This is the fifth year

   in a row the Medical Center has been recognized in the magazine's    annual rankings of hospitals where consumers can go to get the    best level of medical care. HCMC is cited for its excellence in the    categories of Kidney Disease and Respiratory Disorders.