Connecting Columbia Union Seventh-day Adventists

Adventist HealthCare

Adventist HealthCare traces its roots to the turn of the 20th century when Ellen White, co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, contributed proceeds from the sale of her book The Ministry of Healing to help build the Washington Sanitarium. Its first entity, Washington Sanitarium opened in February 1904 and was temporarily headquartered in Washington, D.C., until a permanent facility in Takoma Park, Md., was opened in June 1907.

In its early years, the Sanitarium improved the physical, mental, and spiritual health of its visitors through rest, exercise, and a wholesome diet. After World War I it began providing surgical, obstetric, and emergency care. In 1971, the hospital performed its first open heart surgery. Two years later, it was renamed Washington Adventist Hospital.

Months later, a second facility, Hackettstown Community Hospital (now called Hackettstown Regional Medical Center) opened in northwestern New Jersey. In 1979, Shady Grove Adventist Hospital opened its doors in Rockville, Md.

Today, Adventist HealthCare, one of the largest employers in the state of Maryland, employs more than 7,000 people and cares for more than 250,000 patients annually. This nonprofit network includes three acute care hospitals, a rehabilitation hospital, one psychiatric hospital, numerous nursing centers, and several home health agencies.

Adventist HealthCare

Adventist HealthCare Shady Grove Medical Center and Adventist HealthCare Washington Adventist Hospital each recently received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get with The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award with a Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus designation. 

Adventist HealthCare has named Dwayne Leslie, Esq., as its vice president and chief compliance officer. In this position, he will lead the organization’s comprehensive corporate compliance, organizational integrity and internal audit efforts.

Photo courtesy Potomac Conference

“We wanted our Adventist nurses to be recognized, acknowledged and celebrated for the work they do. We want them to know that the Adventist church and the Adventist HealthCare system appreciates them,” said event organizer Kathy Coleman, Faith Community Nurse coordinator and program director for Adventist HealthCare in Montgomery County, Maryland.

“We look forward to offering our skilled rehabilitation services to the community in a new, state-of-the-art treatment facility,” said Brent Reitz, president of Adventist HealthCare Rehabilitation. “We will fully transition our services to White Oak Medical Center within a year after construction begins this spring.”

Adventist HealthCare’s two Advanced Wound Care & Hyperbaric Medicine Centers have received the Robert A. Warriner III, M.D., Center of Excellence award from Healogics, the nation’s largest provider of advanced wound care services.

Just blocks from the U.S. Capitol, the Adventist Health Policy Association (AHPA) has opened a new office. AHPA is an affiliation of five Seventh-day Adventist healthcare systems, including Adventist HealthCare in Maryland and Kettering Adventist HealthCare Network in Ohio.

Adventist HealthCare Washington Adventist Hospital is the first hospital in Maryland to offer an alternative approach to transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), a less invasive procedure to replace a damaged heart valve without open-heart surgery.

Adventist HealthCare Washington Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park, Md., has been ranked in the top seven percent of hospitals nationwide for the quality care it provides patients who undergo coronary bypass graft surgery, the most common type of open heart surgery in the U.S.