Our History
In 1903 the 36-bed Winchester Memorial Hospital opened in a residential neighborhood near downtown Winchester, Virginia. Its existence and continued growth owed much to the vision of Dr. Hunter H. McGuire and a board of 52 community leaders, several generous donors, the fundraising persistence of the Winchester Memorial Hospital Ladies’ Auxiliary (formed in 1902), and a hospital-based training school for nurses whose students staffed the facility around the clock.
For the next 70+ years the hospital continued to expand its physical presence, its medical staff of board-certified specialists and its scope of services. By 1953, when a five-story Stewart Street addition opened, Winchester Memorial Hospital had grown to 300 beds; by 1972, the official bed count was up to 400. After years of deliberation, the Winchester Memorial Hospital board decided to move the facility from its landlocked location to a 100-acre site on Amherst Street. In 1984, the hospital was renamed Winchester Medical Center and, with Valley Regional Enterprises and Surgi-Center of Winchester, became the core of a new nonprofit health system.
Ground was broken in 1986 for the new 356-bed Winchester Medical Center, an $80 million construction project that was the largest in Winchester’s history at that time. The new facility opened in January 1990, featuring all-private patient rooms and space to expand. Additions since that time include two medical office buildings, a diagnostic center, employee child care center, and a state-of-the-art Wellness & Fitness Center. In 2012 Winchester Medical Center opened the North Tower with an expanded Emergency Department and new homes for an expanded adult Intensive Care Unit and the region’s only Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Today, Winchester Medical Center is an award-winning 495-bed regional referral center offering a broad spectrum of services that includes diagnostic, medical, surgical and rehabilitative care in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The hospital is the only Level II Trauma Center in the region, and is an essential resource for more than 400,000 residents in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia and western Maryland. A Magnet-designated hospital, Winchester Medical Center is also an Advanced Primary Stroke Center, Chest Pain Center and Level 4 Epilepsy Center.