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Glendale Memorial Hospital marks its 90th year of operation

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In 1926, Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital — then known as Glendale Physicians and Surgeons Hospital — admitted its first patient. More than a million patients later, the hospital is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.

The hospital honored the milestone on location Thursday night with guests including Mayor Paula Devine and GMH President Jack Ivie, with entertainment from the Glendale Community College music department. Deputy Chief of Police Carl Povilaitis also presided as master of ceremonies for the event.

Based in San Francisco, Dignity Health is a nonprofit owner and operator of 40 hospitals in California, Arizona and Nevada. The organization acquired GMH in 1998 from UniHealth, and is today a 334-bed secondary healthcare community hospital.

“What we’re really celebrating is what’s happened inside these historical [GMH] buildings all over these many decades,” Ivie said. “That’s obviously how people received care here, and all the doctors that provided the care over the decades. We’re celebrating the legacy of human connection over all this time.”

Before becoming GMH president in 2012, Ivie served as the assistant executive director and vice president of hospital operations from 1980 to 1992. Ivie was welcomed then by many familiar physicians and staff who never left and helped him reconnect with the hospital after the merger.

Ivie is again depending on those same people for the future of the hospital. Some of the biggest changes he’s experienced is the reliance of social media, where the hospital and its staff are increasingly accountable to its patients—beyond the expected providing of clinical medicine.

“We’re as good as our last encounter with the people that touched the hospital,” Ivie said. “That’s the legacy we need to build going forward is how people remember us from a relationship standpoint. It’s not just about building buildings and staying contemporary in healthcare.”

Dr. Santo Polito has seen many of the changes at GMH since first joining the hospital as a cardiologist almost 50 years ago. Now acting as director of cardiovascular services, Polito ran the Glendale Heart Center from its inception in 1992. Polito says even throughout the changes, the backbone of Dignity remains human kindness.

“This is something you don’t realize until you get into a hospital environment — we care, we really care,” Polito said. “You’re not just a medical record number or a name.”

That extends to the hospital’s camaraderie as well, according to Polito. He remembers a night with friends when he happened to run into the then chief operating officer at GMH. When he dropped by to chat, Polito says his friends couldn’t believe they were so chummy.

“It’s a great place to work and that’s why I’m still here,” he said.

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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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