Virginia Mason Hospital

Virginia Mason Hospital was established in 1920 as an 80-bed hospital with offices for six physicians.^[2] In 2011, the hospital opened a 250,000 square-foot, 7-story building named the Floyd & Delores Jones Pavilion. It houses a new Emergency Department on the 7th floor, Intensive Care Unit, and procedure and operating rooms. Also added is the ability to isolate floors to contain any outbreaks of infectious diseases.^[3] The expansion was pursued, as some of the hospital's older buildings were susceptible to damage from earthquakes and were affected by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake.^[4]

In 2000, the hospital began applying the Toyota Production system, also known as the lean system, in an effort to improve patient care.^[5] In 2002, hospital leadership visited Toyota's factories in Japan to study methods of improving efficiency.^[6] In the last year with data available, Virginia Mason Hospital had 22,722 emergency room visits, 15,543 admissions, performed 7,267 inpatient surgeries and 9,973 outpatient surgeries.^[1]

Staff at the hospital have been among the first to introduce a number of new treatments and innovations, including:

• The first use of deep therapy X-ray in 1937
• The first use of cobalt cancer therapy in 1957
• The first use of electromagnetic imaging in 1974
• The first lithotripsy to treat kidney stones in 1985
• The first use of teleradiology to treat off-site patients in 1995 ^[7]

The hospital is affiliated with several other hospitals and health care organizations in the region:

• Seattle Children's Hospital
• Pacific Medical Center

Virginia Mason Medical Center operates several residency training programs for newly graduated physicians (MD and DO). The residencies are fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.^[8] Programs include: anesthesiology, diagnostic radiology, general surgery, and internal medicine.