Affiliated Community Medical Centers history

1978 - $33.7 million project is approved by the board for Harrisburg Hospital.

1979 - The first Children's Health Fair is held for 600 area third graders.

1980 - The first percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is performed at Harrisburg Campus.

Rosemary Stevens, “ ‘A Poor Sort of Memory’: Voluntary Hospitals and Government before the Depression,” The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, Health and Society 60 (1982): 558.

Medicare incorporated a prospective payment system in 1983, with federal programs paying a preset amount for a specific diagnosis in the form of Diagnostic Related Groups, or DRGs.

Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine; Charles E. Rosenberg, The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America’s Hospital System(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987).

Some of the larger not-for-profit corporations have bailed out public facilities through lease arrangements, such as the one between the Daughters of Charity’s Seton Medical Center and the public Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, Texas, that occurred in 1995.

Then in 1997, the Balanced Budget Act decreased Medicare payments to hospitals by $115 billion over five years, including a projected $17 billion reduction in Medicare payments to hospitals.

1998 - PinnacleHealth opens dedicated stroke units in both Harrisburg and Polyclinic Hospitals as part of the formation of a comprehensive stroke care program.

1999 - Cryosurgery is offered for the first time in central Pennsylvania on the Community Campus.

2003 - PinnacleHealth’s Toxicology Center is founded; it is one of the first of its kind in the nation.

2004 - PinnacleHealth brings the National Red Dress Project to Harrisburg, educating women about their number-one health threat, heart disease.

2005 - PinnacleHealth implements the first SPY® Operating System.

2006 - PinnacleHealth nurses achieve Magnet recognition.

2009 - PinnacleHealth performs first kidney transplant as part of the National Kidney Registry’s (NKR) paired donor exchange program.

2010 - PinnacleHealth opens The Spine Institute, which uses a multidisciplinary team approach to provide patients with comprehensive care for neck and back pain.

2012 - PinnacleHealth surgeons are first in the world to perform anterior lumbar spine surgery with the da Vinci Si Surgical System.

2013 - A new partnership with Highmark is formed to expand patient-centered medical home efforts in central Pennsylvania.

In 2015, Penn State Health acquired St Joseph Regional Health Network in Berks County.

The rapidly growing health system expanded once again in 2017 to acquire Physicians’ Alliance LTD, the largest independent physician practice group in Lancaster County.

Taking another step forward as a regional health network, Penn State Health announced in July 2019 plans to build a new acute care hospital in East Hempfield Township, Lancaster County.

The $49 million ED expansion project will add 28,000 square feet of space and is slated for completion by summer 2020.