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The face of the American hospital was changing rapidly in the summer of 1897 when a group of 12 Glens Falls-area physicians began discussions regarding the establishment of a regional healthcare facility. Until that time, hospitals were often referred to as “almshouses,” places where the sick and poverty-stricken waited to die. But the dawn of the new century was bringing dramatic advances in American medicine. Hospitals across the nation were chasing away death and promising life and this visionary group of physicians saw a local hospital as providing the lifeblood for an entire region.

The Daily Record of Glens Falls reported on July 1, 1897, that the doctors’ goal was “to make primarily a charity hospital, where those who, through poverty, are unable to have proper care, may receive attention.” But their work would not end there. These physicians were committed to building more than just another almshouse. This hospital, the article said, would also include “a few private rooms, where patients who are able to pay for attention will be received and will be provided for after the hospital is in working order.”

In more urban areas of the country, hospitals were being seen as places for healing. They attracted the middle and upper classes to their wards and offered physicians and surgeons the opportunity to learn new and exciting medical techniques. The vision here in Glens Falls was to create an institution that improved the health and well being of the entire region — an institution dedicated to medical science and the provision of high quality health care.

Charity Begins at Home

By late 1897, the hospital was fully incorporated and the search for a suitable location was underway. After many meetings with the newly formed hospital board of directors, a local industrialist by the name of Solomon A. Parks generously donated his home at 48 Park Street for the formal establishment of what became known as Parks Hospital. 

With this gift began a remarkable tradition of community support that continues on Park Street today. Businesses and individuals from across the region immediately began contributing to the hospital’s future, filling the building over the next year and a half with the equipment, supplies, furnishings and staff so critical to the institution’s success.

At the start, The Parks Hospital had two main wards — an eight-bed ward for males and a seven-bed ward for females. The first patient was treated on November 23, 1900. One year later, the hospital had 22 patients.

Dedicated to Innovation

Even in its infancy, the hospital recognized the need to be progressive and innovative. As the demand for care grew, so too did the need for qualified nurses. In May of 1903, plans for establishing a nursing school were launched. Three years later, on June 27, 1906, two local women became the first graduates from the Glens Falls Hospital School of Nursing.  The school would produce many outstanding healthcare professionals over the next three decades before closing in 1932, victim to the Great Depression.

On May 22, 1909, the name of the hospital was officially changed to Glens Falls Hospital, and hospital officials ushered in a new era of continuous professional and technological improvement including:

Community support provided new x-ray equipment, and an anonymous donor provided funds to replace the horse-drawn ambulance with a new-fangled motor car capable of traveling at 55 miles per hour. The new ambulance was equipped with running water, a physician’s cabinet, two stretchers, electric lighting and even its own communications system — a plastic tube that allowed driver and doctor to speak back and forth.

Advancements in technology and medical treatment accelerated over the next several decades. In 1941, the hospital hired its first pharmacist. By 1950, the nursing staff had grown to 100 registered nurses and 25 licensed practical nurses.  The hospital was averaging 155 births each month and the daily patient count reached 185, with as many 25 operations being performed each day. It was not uncommon in those days to find temporary beds stationed in the hallways, as the medical staff worked gallantly to keep up with the growing demand for services. On October 15, 1956, a newborn baby girl became the hospital’s 200,000th patient since opening its doors.

The addition of the West Wing on January 12, 1950 heralded a new decade of continued growth for Glens Falls Hospital. By 1956, 18,000 people were being admitted annually, and the operating budget was at nearly $2 million -- double that of 1950.

Admissions from Queensbury were also growing rapidly and showing signs of post-war growth, soon making it the largest of all of Warren County’s admissions. In 1956, Queensbury had one fourth of the city’s admission at 5,801.

You Can't Fly With One Wing

In 1957, the word “launch” took new meaning, with the Soviets launching Sputnik into space; in Glens Falls, they launched a $1 million capital campaign for the East Wing, employing the slogan, “You can’t fly with one wing,” in reference to the hospital’s need for an East Wing to match the West Wing. By December 1959, the campaign had surpassed its $850,000 goal to raise an unprecedented sum of $1,194,000.

The time from the early 1960s to 1970s became an even more complex mosaic of events, resulting from both internal and external forces. The hospital, already large in terms of services, physical size and work force would expand again. The addition of the East Wing probably benefited the hospital more than any other addition to date. The East Wing not only expanded the hospital’s services, but also required additional staff making it one of the largest employers in the area. When the East Wing was completed in fall 1962, increasing bed size by 93 (and later by 34 additional beds), it was a beautiful addition that was looked upon with pride by both those at the hospital as well as in the community.

 To the public, the period from 1959 to 1963 had meant the conclusion of a successful campaign and the construction and opening of another wing to provide superior medical care for the Tri-Counties.

In the remaining five months of 1965, there would be more change at the hospital than in the preceding two years. During this time, two new departments would be established: inhalation therapy and occupational therapy. The hospital began its first program ever for expectant parents in December.

With that pivotal year of 1966 arrived, two staggering changes literally rocked Glens Falls Hospital. First, the federal government’s Medicare/Medicaid legislation, passed in 1965, came home to roost in 1966. Then, in that same year, the newly formed New York State Health Department assumed control of all voluntary hospitals. In a pen stroke, however, President Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress cooperatively placed millions of Americans within quick reach of medical services that were to be paid for by the federal government. The simultaneous impact of the Medicare and Medicaid programs staggered hospitals all over the nation. Coupled with this, the state Department of Health assumed supervisory control of all voluntary hospitals. 

The newly created DOH made its presence felt locally when it delayed the introduction of cobalt therapy that had been under consideration for six years. The proposal for the Cobalt Unit, first made in 1962 by the Warren County Medical Society was tabled because of funding problems. Finally, three years after the initial approval and six years after its first proposal, the Cobalt Unit began operation in March 1968. Its medical benefits, though, made it worth the wait.

In March 1966, a new Cardiac Care Unit (CCU) went into operation. When the Joint Commission on Accreditation visited in September, it took care to give special praise to that unit and to its nurses.

In September 1967, medical staff representative Dr. Jesse Parker, took a big step and requested that the sale of cigarettes be banned in the hospital. Though the controversial motion was tabled, just three years later the Hospital Guild stopped the sale of tobacco in the Gift Shop in June; by September, total sales had dropped by $1,000.

Innovations continued in 1967 with the passing of the rule mandating all admitting physicians be required to know cardio-pulmonary resuscitation (CPR). In November the first Burn Care Unit was created.

In the closing days of 1967, the hospital entered into a totally new aspect of health care as it joined Warren County in making history on a local and state level. The county had become the “first in the state to receive a general staffing grant for a mental health program.” A new psychiatrist was hired at the hospital to direct two new programs, “in-patient care and the day hospital aspect.” In January 1968, a former home on 109 Park Street was designated to be used “temporarily to house the day care center” for providing patient care in a home-like atmosphere. By being under the hospital’s umbrella, there would be a “continuity of care” for the patient, allowing an easy move from one type of treatment to another.

In June 1969, the National Institute of Mental Health approved staffing and construction grants for the in-patient care, with eight beds in the East Wing designated for use by the Mental Health Unit until the construction was completed. The facility was now formally called the Warren-Washington Counties Community Mental Health Center, focusing on five aspects: in-patient, outpatient, day care, education and research. By the beginning of the 1970s the Mental Health Unit had come to be considered one of the “top two student placements in New York State.”

The 1960s had witnessed social change on a grand scale. The advent of the Medicare and Medicaid programs made health care available and accessible to the elderly and the poor. Throughout the 1960s, the hospital had been acquiring property, not solely for some future expansion, but to house existing but space-deprived services. The Park Street neighborhood was being transformed from its residential character to a series of hospital satellite buildings, including the social services office open to patients’ families at 104 Park Street and living accommodations provided for LPN students and the histology and cytology sections.

In 1971, Superintendent-elect William E. Philion succeeded Superintendent William Illinger, an intelligent, autocratic leader who took literal control of the hospital and its fortunes in 1953 and during the next 17 years. Illinger brought the near-bankrupt institution to solvency, directed a major building campaign in adding the East Wing, and eventually led Glens Falls Hospital to a position of prominence among the deliverers of health care in northeastern New York.

Philion had already been at the hospital for nearly 20 years though he was still in his early forties. Well liked and respected by both employees and the medical staff, Philion joined the hospital’s business office in 1950 and had become well acquainted with the employees, having hired many of them personally.

The West Tower

By the end of 1971, the hospital was negotiating with the city to close Bazinet Street, the principle site of the next hospital expansion, the West Tower. It would prove to be the most significant physical change made in this hospital since it was founded.

As ground was broken on June 5, 1973 for the West Tower, the city’s concerns were undoubtedly fueled by its own Urban Renewal Program, which was itself making sizeable inroads into the taxable properties as it demolished homes and businesses to create new sites for commerce, apartments and roads. In concessions to strong overtures made by the city, Glens Falls Hospital exchanged some of its land owned by the city to ultimately create what is today the section of Hudson Avenue that runs from Glen Street to South Street.

Breaking ground shortly after the OPEC oil embargo of 1973, the hospital forged ahead to improve services internally and to increase its hallmark outreach programs, in spite of economic conditions and the construction. In cooperation with the Voluntary Action Center, the hospital also reached out to provide “Meals on Wheels,” with volunteers delivering over 40 hospital-prepared meals daily to homebound elderly citizens.

By October 1974, the hospital’s services were extending further and further. While the West Tower was the main focus, in reality, construction surrounded the hospital. The architects literally ringed the building with new construction. In addition to the main West Tower there was also created space for the Mental Health Unit on the southeast corner of the first floor with additional square footage for the laboratory beneath it in the basement. These were major expansions in themselves.

On June 30, 1976, after three years and 25 days of construction, Glens Falls Hospital completed the largest building program in its history, nearly doubling in size to cover 400,000 square feet. Bed capacity was increased form 375 to 440, but most importantly, the support services were improved dramatically, particularly as they applied to outpatients.

The building additions were beautiful, efficient complements to the existing hospital. Every square foot of the older portions of the hospital was renovated so that, in essence, everything was new. The West Tower was completed in March 1975. Nearly double its previous size, the obstetrics facilities had eight labor rooms, three delivery rooms, a well-baby nursery, and intensive care for premature or sick babies, and modern, comfortable bedrooms for the convalescing mothers. All patients’ rooms in the West Tower were designed to be serviced from a functional central core, where the nurse’s stations were located.

The hospital was becoming a magnet for specialists, whose talents in turn would give reason to upgrade the facilities to match their highly specialized needs. Intensive specialization could be seen throughout every department. New services brought new terms to the hospital’s lexicon such as endoscopy and esophagogastroduodenoscopy.  The Emergency Room’s expansion was in response to the continuous growth of outpatient services.

When construction was completed, 23 well-equipped rooms awaited a projected 150 patients daily, or a total of almost 55,000 people a year. In addition, other, new outpatient services included in the new hospital were same-day surgery, x-ray examinations, laboratory tests, chemotherapy treatments, speech therapy, free monthly hearing tests, a free monthly glaucoma clinic, expectant parents classes, a stop smoking clinic and Pap smear and breast examinations. Finally, the Mental Health Unit, in addition to its 30 beds, also offered an active outpatient program of daytime counseling and care.

How the scene had changed in three years! Bazinet Street, Basin Street, Little Street, Park Place and Sheldon Street each had become an undistinguishable part of the hospital campus topography. Their existence would never be known or ever guessed by newcomers to the hospital. The shady, tree-lined neighborhood that surrounded the Parks Hospital would never be the same.

With the completion of the building program, the hospital, always a focal point of the city, now enjoyed an even more heightened visibility. The redirected Hudson Avenue brought all of those entering town from the west directly past the expanded edifice. It became the centerpiece of a rejuvenated neighborhood. The breadth of services provided by the hospital was also becoming more evident.

The Day Surgery Unit had completed its first year of operation, having provided nearly 2,500 patients the convenience of returning to their homes the same day as their surgery. Not only would the cost of an overnight stay be adverted, but also the patient could recover in the more familiar ambience of their home. The hospital’s ambulatory surgery concept was a forerunner of programs initiated later by other hospitals in the Northeast. Glens Falls innovation brought representatives from many other institutions here for tours of the facility.

Serving the Community

In that same year, outreach programs were coming into their own as the hospital breached the confines of its walls to take services out into the community. Another fine example of a new outreach program was the Mobile Dental Unit, to provide a dental program for indigent children. The Queensbury Lion’s Club graciously donated the fully equipped dentist’s office on wheels to be placed at various area schools to meet the needs of a tremendously underserved group of kids. By March 1, 1976, it was on the road.

In 1979, the hospital identified another unmet community need which it felt should be addressed. A significant number of area residents were determined to be suffering from irreversible kidney disease. The nearest dialysis center was in the Capital District and required a round trip of an hour or more to access it. Announcement that the hospital intended to establish its own center was met with immediate and enthusiastic support. Unable to accommodate the center within the hospital properly, a portion of the building at 83-85 Park Street was converted to house it. With the renovation completed, a group of dedicated nurses volunteered for training in caring for dialysis patients and, in July 1980, began their first treatments.

The field of radiology and its growth at Glens Falls Hospital typifies the medical advances so prolific in the 20th century. From the single X-ray tube installed by Dr. Birdsall in 1910, the department had expanded by the 1980s not only in size, but also in the variety of techniques used. In November 1980, the hospital installed its first CT (computerized tomography) Scanner, a diagnostic tool which could obviate the need for riskier exploratory surgery. The “million dollar machine,” was put to immediate use and, in its first full year of operation, accounted for more than 3,200 procedures. Demand for this service eventually proved so great that a second unit would be added in 1987.

Among the many innovations for which Glens Falls Hospital was responsible, the 1980s concept of single room birthing was one. The notion, new to the Northeast, had its inception in 1985.  The entire second floor of the West Tower was renovated to provide expectant mothers the comfort and convenience of laboring, delivering and recovering in the same room. 

The Glens Falls Hospital would necessarily play a determinative role in the future of health care in the entire region.  During the early 1980s, Glens Falls Hospital, like other institutions across the country, wrestled with the problem of sustaining its financial liability through its conventional health delivery role. In 1984, the hospital corporation was restructured to position itself for the new era. A new parents holding company, Adirondack Health Services Corporation, was formed to oversee the entire organization’s operations. This and other new firms were able to provide services outside the traditional hospital’s offerings. A pharmacy and hearing center, too, would be opened in 1987.  These enterprises all had a common goal: to generate revenues. The community would, in the end, be the real beneficiary of the reorganization.

The Pruyn Pavilion Prepares Glens Falls Hospital To Offer More Outpatient Care

The grand opening in September 1993 of the Pruyn Pavilion was the next greatly anticipated hospital expansion, this one five years in the making. This outpatient facility was in large part due to the contributions of the Pruyn family throughout the century. As it still does today as when it first opened, the new addition housed the Cancer Center,  Rehabilitation Centers and Day Surgery Center. The Pruyn Pavilion heralded the newest milestone in the evolution of excellence in patient care at Glens Falls Hospital. Administrators predicted advances fostered by the state-of-the-art outpatient facility would lure the highest caliber of talented doctors and clinicians committed to creating skilled, quality care area patients deserved.

Located on the first floor, the Cancer Center was designed to promote improved survival for area cancer patients and continued good health by providing in an environment where cancer patients are encouraged to have hope, achieve a higher quality of life, and strive to overcome cancer through their own positive attitude. All of the services at the Rehabilitation Centers -- physical and occupational therapy, speech pathology and language therapy, work tolerance, and audiology -- were developed over the years as separate entities, integrated in the centralized, easily accessible location on the building’s third floor. The fourth-floor Day Surgery Center promised the concept for patients to have their procedures and go home the very same day, thanks to highly sophisticated technology and modern improvements in anesthesia

Glens Falls Hospital Today

In November 2005, Glens Falls Hospital opened its new Northwest Tower, the culmination of five years of planning. The Tower features a new second-floor Inpatient Oncology Unit will all private rooms; a 46-bed Medical/Surgical Inpatient Unit on the third floor; four Interventional Radiology/Cardiac Catheterization Suites with a dedicated recovery area on the fourth floor; a Critical Care Unit and Progressive Care Unit on the fifth floor; and a Telemetry Unit on the sixth floor for monitoring cardiac patients.

Glens Falls Hospital is now spread over more than 750,000 square feet, with a comprehensive range of inpatient and outpatient services. The hospital is also the largest employer in the Greater Glens Falls region with more than 2,900 employees and an annual payroll in excess of $96 million. Our medical staff is comprised of more than 250 clinicians, representing more than 25 different specialties and an equal number of subspecialties.

Nearly 14,000 patients will be admitted to the hospital this year. Nearly 50,000 people will be treated in the Emergency Care Center. Our surgeons will perform more than 13,000 operations and more than 1,500 babies will meet their parents for the first time in the comfort and warmth of The Snuggery.

Perhaps even more significant is the hospital’s reach outside the walls of 100 Park Street.  Through the establishment of satellite locations across the Greater Glens Falls region such as Granville Family Health, School Based Health Programs, Center for Children and Families, and the Broad Street Campus, just to name a few, the hospital now offers primary and preventive care, behavioral health services, substance abuse and alcohol counseling, chronic and acute renal dialysis and other important life-giving services to more than 180,000 people in the 3,000-square-mile, five-county service region.

Glens Falls Hospital today is larger than 95 percent of all hospitals in America in terms of our scope of services, and our caregivers provide a scope and quality of service unusually expansive for a rural, community hospital.