Parkview Medical Center was founded in 1923, after the Arkansas River overcame its banks and sent a devastating flood through the middle of the city of Pueblo, Colorado. This flood cut off residents on the northside of the community from crucial medical care, and many residents in need of hospitalization died because there was no way to get to the two existing hospitals south of the river.
After the catastrophe, physicians H.A. Black, W.T.H. Baker, Guy Hopkins, Fritz Lasser, Carl Maynard and George Myers came together to establish a new, northside hospital and called it Parkview. Parkview Medical Center began with eight beds in what was formerly a private home. By 1926, the first wing of the hospital was completed to accommodate 23 patients. Soon after, capacity was expanded to 150 beds.
In the intervening 90 years, Parkview has grown to a 350-bed facility with medical offices and ancillary services nearby, along with a standalone emergency room in Pueblo West. Construction is underway on a new outpatient center that will eventually allow Parkview to expand its emergency department, a desperate need in Pueblo. Between the main facility and the Pueblo West emergency room, Parkview Medical Center’s emergency department sees more than 86,000 patients a year.
Parkview Medical Center is the largest private employer in Pueblo with more than 2,800 employees and a medical staff of more than 370 physicians.
Parkview Medical Center is proud of its achievements—among them:
- National recognition in 2016 as one of the top 100 trauma centers in the nation by CareChex
- Consistent recognition for cardiac care by Women’s Health
- Reaching into the top 500 providers for home care by HomeCare Elite
- Accreditations by the Joint Center for hip and knee replacement
Parkview’s mission is to “provide the highest quality health care to the people it serves,” and the hospital’s mission is to “be the health care provider of choice for patients, employees and physicians.”
Parkview’s commitment to quality also shows in its Studer Group® journey achievements: the percentage of falls resulting in injury per 1,000 patient days has dropped to 0.37 percent in December 2016, while overall employee satisfaction reached 89 percent, eight points above the national norm.