California Hospital Medical Center - California Hospital

Dignity Health-California Hospital Medical Center is located in the South Park district of downtown Los Angeles, California at 1401 S. Grand Avenue. The 318-bed community hospital has been providing high-quality care to downtown and its neighboring communities for well over a century. Dignity Health-California Hospital Medical Center is known for its wide range of medical services - from Obstetrics and Gynecology, to Orthopedics and Cardiology. The hospital also operates the only Level II Trauma Center in downtown Los Angeles, and its Emergency Room treats over 70,000 patients each year. The hospital's neighbors include Staples Center, "L.A. Live" and the Fashion Inst itute of Design & Merchandising.

Services

California Hospital's services include Level II Trauma Center, Emergency Medicine, Gynecology (The Los Angeles Center for Women's Health), Cardiology (Cath Lab and Open Heart Surgery), Intensive Care Unit, Transitional Care Unit/Rehabilitation Services, Obstetrics, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Surgical Services, Cancer Center.

History

California Hospital Medical Center (CHMC) was founded in 1887 by Dr. Walter Lindley and two other physicians. It was originally a three-story building located at 315 W. Sixth Street in Los Angeles. By 1902, CHMC turned into the largest and best-equipped physician-owned hospital west of Chicago and less than 25 years later, CHMC's old frame buildings were replaced by a more modern nine-story brick building, resulting in another famous "first" - it was the first fireproof hospital in Los Angeles. Between 1870 and 1910, hospitals moved from the periphery to the center of medical education and medical practice. And the effects of this significant change rippled outward, altering the relationship of doctors to hospitals and to one another, and shaping the development of the hospital system as a whole.

The access that private practitioners gained to hospitals, without becoming their employees, became one of the distinctive features of medical care in America, with consequences not fully appreciated even today. In harmony with the growth of the city of Los Angeles along other lines was the innovative development of facilities for caring for the sick. California Hospital - the pioneer, private, general hospital, owned and operated by physicians - blazed the way and established a precedent which had a worldwide following.

Today, Dignity Health-California Hospital Medical Center is a 318-bed acute care hospital that provides medical care to the dynamic community of downtown Los Angeles and its surrounding neighborhoods.