Sarasota County's first modern hospital marks 97th anniversary, closes in on century mark

Sarasota Memorial Hospital marked its 97th anniversary on Nov. 2. When the 32-bed facility opened on that date in 1925, it was the county’s first modern hospital.

In the years since, it has grown into a thriving regional medical center with acute care hospital campuses in Sarasota and Venice and plans to break ground on a third hospital in North Port as part of its 100th-anniversary celebration.

It cost $40,000 to build that first facility. In contrast, it cost $255 million to build the Venice campus that opened about a year ago.

The health system manages more than 1 million patient visits a year, caring for 951 inpatients between its two hospitals and 544 patients in its ERs on Nov. 1.

Here are a few key dates in Sarasota Memorial’s soon-to-be century legacy:

• 1930: the hospital, which had been turned over to the city and renamed Sarasota Municipal Hospital, had 100 beds, a nurses' home, garage, operating room and a new annex to accommodate patient overflow.

• 1940s: In 1945 the hospital raised funds for a $14,000 annex to enlarge the operating room, delivery room and kitchen, and to open a separate patient entrance to the African-American ward, reached by going through the OR; in 1946: Army barracks from Venice transported to the hospital for use as an 18-bed unit; in 1949: the Florida Legislature created the Sarasota County Public Hospital District. Later, a nine-member elected Hospital Board was formed.

Mid-century advancements

• 1950s: In 1951 hospital opened its first nurse training school. Applicants must have a high school education and be 18 to 45 years old; in 1954, the hospital is renamed Sarasota Memorial, in honor of World War I and II veterans;  in 1955, new south wing opens, and now with 225 beds, Sarasota Memorial Hospital (SMH) is one of the few fully air-conditioned hospitals in the southeastern U.S.

• 1966, the hospital was integrated in compliance with civil rights regulations to participate in the new Medicare program.

• 1972 SMH opened a new 10-story east wing but faces a near-crisis bed shortage, despite having almost 600 beds. This same year, the first patient flight from SMH’s helicopter pad takes place, and in 1975 the hospital purchased an EMI Scanner X-ray system for $400,000. It is considered the most significant development in its field since the 1895 discovery of X-rays.

• 1984, the hospital’s Waldemere Tower opened; in 1985, SMH’s outpatient Cape Surgery Center opens with a $1 million donation from the Henry Cape bequest as a memorial to his wife.

• 1990, the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) received Level III designation, the state’s highest, while in 1992 the program now known as the Community Specialty Clinic opened, providing care to the county’s uninsured and underinsured. In 1993, the hospital’s Critical Care Center opened.

21st Century care

• In 2000, SMH opened a new outpatient care centers on University Parkway and at Blackburn Point; in 2004, SMH was named “Hospital of the Year” by the Microsoft Healthcare Users Group for its use of electronic records and physician order entry technology; 2006 Sarasota Memorial became the first Florida hospital to acquire the da Vinci robotic surgical system and opened its first urgent care center on University Parkway, followed by a second urgent care center at Stickney Point Road and an outpatient care center and ER in North Port.

• In the 2010s, SMH opened more urgent care centers, and the state designated it as a Level II Trauma Center, the only one in Sarasota County; 2017 SMH partnered with Florida State University’s College of Medicine to launch an Internal Medicine Residency Program and open an internal medicine practice in Newtown; in 2019, SMH breaks ground on its eight-story Brian D. Jellison Cancer Institute oncology tower on the main campus.

• 2020: Hospital teams begin developing protocols in response to the global spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). On March 12, SMH confirmed its first COVID-positive inpatient and over the following seven months, treated more than 1,000 COVID-19 patients. SMH also became a research site for the prevention and treatment of COVID, launched clinical trials of the antiviral drug remdesivir. In October 2020, the Brian and Sheila Jellison Family Foundation donated $25 million to the Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation to help improve cancer care in the community.

2021: In November, Sarasota Memorial Hospital-Venice opened.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota Memorial Hospital marks 97th anniversary