Our story begins in 1917 with the opening of the Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital on Leona Street — named for a crusading county judge and state senator who died from a heart attack at the young age of 42. San Antonio was booming — the largest city in Texas at the time, and still growing with thousands of troops massing at the start of World War I, and thousands of refugees fleeing the Mexican Revolution. A charity hospital was needed, and the city and county each contributed half the $250,000 required to build it. The hospital opened just in time to care for victims of the influenza epidemic of 1918.
A groundbreaking ceremony is held for the new Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital at Leona and Frio streets. George Green, son of the crusading county judge and hospital’s namesake, lays the hospital’s cornerstone.
The Robert B. Green School of Nursing is established. Financial struggles that also plagued the hospital would cause the nursing school to shut down operations from 1933 to 1937, when it reopened for another decade.
The Robert B. Green opens its doors to patients on Feb. 2 — the day after a grand opening celebration attracts an estimated 4,000-5,000 local residents to tour its wards. The hospital cost $250,000, with the city and county each providing $125,000 through the sale of bonds. The first patient was a woman admitted for inflammation of the fallopian tubes.
After a devastating tornado strikes the town of Runge, nine victims are treated at the Robert B. Green. While charitable organizations agree to pay their hospital bills, the Board of Managers refuses to accept payment, laying the foundation of the hospital’s mission to serve in times of crisis.
The Medical and Surgical Hospital on nearby Camden Street closes its doors, increasing the patient volume at the Robert B. Green. One cent out of the 25 cents collected for the General Fund Tax is allocated to cover operating expenses for the Green. Even so, the hospital struggles financially in the face of increasing demand.
With polio an epidemic nationwide and at home, a grant-funded polio ward at the Green is at capacity. When the hospital is forced to close the following year, the polio ward will continue to operate within its walls.
With an ever-increasing number of patients seeking care for diseases such as tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhoid and meningitis, and inadequate resources, the Brady Green Memorial Hospital and its nursing school closes its doors and the medical staff disbanded. Only a small cancer ward funded by the Junior League, and the grant-funded polio ward, remained open.
Taxes levied separately by the city and county, creating double tax on city residents, allowed the Robert B. Green Hospital to gradually reopen, beginning with the pediatric and eye wards. The hospital regains accreditation from the American Hospital Association, and a medical residency program is restored soon after.
The Bexar County Hospital District is approved by voters in 1955, becoming one of the first hospital districts in Texas and stabilizing the Green’s finances through property taxes. Bexar County Commissioners would set its tax rate and appoint its Board of Managers.
House Bill 9 is signed into law by Texas Gov. Price Daniel, establishing the South Texas Medical School. The law stipulated that a state-of-the-art teaching hospital be located within a mile of the new medical school. The same year, the State Board of Nurse Examiners approves the establishment of a new school of nursing at the Robert B. Green.
Bexar County voters pass a $6.5 million bond issue, with $5 million — to be matched by $10 million in federal funds — to build the new teaching hospital, with the rest to be used to expand the Robert B. Green.
With a site selected for the new medical school and teaching hospital on a former dairy farm in Oak Hills, construction begins on the new Bexar County Hospital. A $15 million contract was signed in December for a 5-4-bed hospital on a 29-acre site donated by the South Texas Medical Foundation.
Both the Bexar County Hospital and the South Texas Medical School open their doors. Seventeen interns, 152 faculty and 226 students from the medical school begin working at the hospital. The Bexar County Hospital District donates 2.6 acres of adjoining land to build ta new Veterans Administration hospital.
Lady Patricia Brady dies, leaving just over $1 million to the Bexar County Hospital District — the largest single gift by an individual in its history. The funds will be used to transform the Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital, beginning with the opening of the Brady Clinic. Over the next few years, the facility would become the Brady/Green Community Health Center, and the centerpiece of the hospital district’s ambulatory mission.
Construction begins on a $13.1 million expansion and renovation that includes a parking garage, a 12-story tower (known today as Horizon Tower), and a five-story patient care addition.
The same year that the Robert B. Green Memorial Hospital becomes the Brady/Green Community Health Center, the Board of Managers approves renaming the Bexar County Hospital. It becomes Medical Center Hospital.
To better support its charitable mission, the Bexar County Hospital District Development Corporation — known today at University Health System Foundation — is established as a 501(c)(3) philanthropic organization to conduct fundraising.
Eighteen years after 38-year-old Joan Wish became the hospital’s first kidney transplant patient, Dr. J. Kent Trinkle performs the first heart transplant on 56-year-old Catherine Hooker at Medical Center Hospital. The program would become better known in the years that followed for its innovative approach to lung and heart-lung transplants. The first liver transplant would occur in 1992.
A new Children’s Pavilion opens at Medical Center Hospital, the same year as the first pediatric kidney transplant is performed there. The following year, a Fetal Diagnostic Unit would open.
A 77-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit opens at Medical Center Hospital, the same year as the area’s first pediatric heart transplant is performed.
The Lutheran General Hospital on Zarzamora Street, the West Side’s only hospital, closes its doors after years of financial losses. The site is purchased by the Bexar County Hospital District for $1.1 million and will become the world-renowned Texas Diabetes Institute.
The Bexar County Hospital District becomes University Health System, and the hospital is renamed University Hospital, to create a stronger public association with its academic mission. As the same time, a focus on preventive health leads to creation of Community First Health Plans, the area’s only nonprofit, locally owned health maintenance organization. Prevention is also behind the growth of its ambulatory network. Its first neighborhood health center moves into a permanent home on S.W. 36th Street and becomes University Family Health Center — Southwest. Another neighborhood clinic opens on Basse Road.
University Health System joins Baptist Health System as a co-sponsor of San Antonio’s AirLife helicopter ambulance service. The Reeves Rehabilitation Center, named after former Bexar County Judge Blair Reeves, opens at University Hospital.
CareLink, a financial assistance program to provide both primary care and access to specialists for Bexar County residents without affordable options for health insurance, is launched. The innovative program would become a national model, with support on all sides of the political spectrum.
University Hospital is verified by the American College of Surgeons as a level I trauma center, the same year the Surgical Trauma Intensive Care Unit opens at University Hospital.
The Texas Diabetes Institute, one of the premier institutions in the nation for the treatment and development of new therapies for diabetes, opens in a part of the community where diabetes rates are the highest. Community Medicine Associates — known today as University Medicine Associates — is launched as a nonprofit physician practice with the aim of providing more primary care and specialists in neighborhoods where they are needed. The following year, University Health System becomes one of two sponsors of the Center for Health Care Services — Bexar County’s mental health and mental retardation authority.
University Health System is awarded its first of seven consecutive U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals recognitions. The same year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Urban Institute, recognizes CareLink as one of the top five exemplary national models for strengthening access to healthcare for the uninsured.
University Health System plays a key role to secure state funding for uncompensated trauma care, and the Driver Responsibility Program is established to collect fines and surcharges from bad drivers. University Health System is one of 10 level I trauma centers selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for the “Urgent Matters” program, a nationwide effort to reduce emergency room overcrowding.
Ground is broken for the Peveto Center for Pastoral Care at University Hospital, funded with community donations through the University Health System Foundation. The center is named in memory of Freda Peveto, and recognizes the generosity of John Peveto, former chair of the Bexar County Hospital District Board of Managers. It opened in 2006.
Following hurricanes Katrina and Rita, University Health System staffs the emergency shelter at the former Kelly Air Force Base and operates a primary care clinic at the Levi Strauss shelter.
George B. Hernández Jr., an attorney who joined the Bexar County Hospital District in 1990 as vice president of legal services — after serving as its legal advisor as chief of the civil section in the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office — is named president/CEO.
Following the philosophy that an organization’s greatest asset is its people, University Health System launches the Management Development Academy and Performance Leadership Academy, both created to groom future leaders. The two programs are part of its nationally recognized Center for Learning Excellence dedicated to helping employees reach their career goals.
Ten preventive health clinics and 125 city staff members are integrated into University Health System from the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District in an effort to improve coordination of care and reduce duplication of services.
The Board of Managers approves a Master Facility Plan to build a new tower at University Hospital and expand the Robert B. Green Campus. Bexar County Commissioners authorize the issuance of $290 million in certificates of obligation to pay for the first phase of construction. The $899 million expansion would be the largest construction project in Bexar County history.
University Health System joins with the San Antonio Independent School District to open a medical magnet program at Fox Tech High School.
University Hospital becomes the only hospital in South Texas and one of only 6 percent in the nation to earn Magnet designation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center — the gold standard for excellence in patient care.
To address a shortage of emergency medicine specialists in Texas, University Health System joins with The University of Texas Health Science Center to launch the region’s first civilian emergency medicine residency program.
Ground is broken for a new six-story clinical building at the Robert B. Green Campus. The following year, construction would begin on the million-square-foot Sky Tower at University Hospital.
With the approval of the Texas 1115 Medicaid waiver, University Health System becomes the anchor institution for 20 South Texas counties in Regional Health Care Partnership 6, creating 124 innovative projects valued at $1.16 billion aimed at improving access and quality of healthcare to all.
The 269,000-square-foot clinical building at the Robert B. Green Campus opens its doors, immediately becoming a new landmark on the western edge of downtown with a dramatic, fluttering kinetic sculpture across its broad façade and a computerized LED light display that bathes the building in brilliant colors at night. Shortly after it opens, the Board of Manager signs an agreement to provide a new home for pediatric specialists from The University of Texas Health Science Center on the sixth floor. At the same time, later additions that had been tacked onto the original hospital are demolished, eventually restoring the original entrance.
University Health System launches its school-based health center initiative. The Harlandale ISD School-Based Health Center opens on the campus of Collier Elementary with an aim of keeping kids healthy and in class. A second center, the Southwest ISD School-Based Health Center, opens in 2015.
The H-E-B Body Adventure Powered by University Health System opens at the Witte Museum, teaching children about how their bodies work and encouraging healthy habits.
University Health System and the UT Health Science Center renew historic ties with a long-term affiliation agreement.
University Hospital is verified as a level I pediatric trauma center by the American College of Surgeons, an elite designation that demonstrates it provides the highest level of care available to the children of South Texas
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