It's time to build for the future

January 13, 1896. That’s the year Salem Hospital admitted its first patient, Fred Demeler, a 65-year-old sewing-machine salesman.

Salem Hospital consisted of a donated building on the corner of Ferry and 12th Streets in Salem. It had five beds, two nurses, a superintendent, a medical student who served as house physician, and a janitor.

In those days, hospitals weren’t central to the practice of medicine, as most physicians saw their patients in the office or the patient’s home, and life expectancy in the United States was only about 46 years.

Much has changed in healthcare during the past 110 years:

• Our patients are sicker, but their hospital stays are shorter.
• We must devote significant amounts of space to imaging devices that in turn give us astonishing pictures—even three-dimensional images—that are essential for diagnosis and treatment.
• From word processing to essential, life-saving machines, technology is a vital component of healthcare.
• More and more people call the Salem area their home.
• And the baby-boomer generation continues its inevitable march through the aging process, driving them into the ranks of people who need our services.

In the midst of all this change, one thing remains constant—hospitals need to renovate and build in order to keep pace with advances in healthcare and changing patient needs.

Only ten years after it opened, Salem Hospital began its first construction project when its two surgical rooms needed to be modernized.

It’s now time to provide you with a 21st century hospital, one that will meet your changing needs, now and in the future.