The Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital Association history

The two joined in a partnership, which led to William Lanning’s move to Hastings in 1879.

It was a ripe field for snake oil salesmen, such as the 1893 promoters of the “Bi-Chloride of Gold Cure . . . for the liquor, opium, cocaine, chloroform, arsenic and tobacco habit.” (Arsenic habit?!) Nor was medical education in much better shape.

Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, Vital Records Office, Mary Lanning death certificate, filed January 22, 1910

Following an organizational meeting on March 24, 1914, Articles of Incorporation for the Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital Association were filed on March 25th.

On January 21, 1915, five years after Mary’s death, the hospital built to memorialize her goal of service to others was dedicated.

The first case of what was commonly known as “infantile paralysis” had been diagnosed in Adams County only in 1916.

That deficiency was addressed through an arrangement with a Lincoln pathologist. Its “Minimum Standards for Hospitals” (like the Flexner Report, funded by a Carnegie Foundation grant) were published in 1917.

They filled exactly one page! Nonetheless, when on-site inspections of hospitals began in 1918, only 89 of 692 hospitals surveyed met the requirements.

Lanning died on January 9, 1919, at Mary Lanning Memorial Hospital due to complications following surgery.

Obstetrics was headed by Doctor Frank Schaufelberger (whom we’ve already mentioned), Pediatrics by Doctor C. B. Spicer, Internal Medicine by Doctor E. B. Hamel, and Surgery (after 1922) by Doctor C. B. Calbreth.

In 1926, the Alice T. Lanning Obstetrical Wing, named in honor of Mrs.

By 1928, 16 Nebraska hospitals had achieved A.C.S. accreditation, 11 of which were in Lincoln or Omaha.

And so, on October 9, 1933, Franklin H. Martin, Director General of the A.C.S., wrote, “Your hospital has been awarded Full Approval by the American College of Surgeons for the year 1933.”

The hospital pharmacy opened in 1939, just in time for the advent of antibiotic therapy.

Penicillin was first employed at Mary Lanning in April 1944.

Specifically, a new $65,000 X-ray department opened in March 1953, under the direction of Doctor Warren Richard, who was to head the Radiology Department for decades to follow.

The JCAH released the results of its first survey of hospitals in March of 1954, listing 2,920 hospitals as fully-accredited, out of about 7,500 total hospitals in the United States and Canada.

While this led to a lasting expansion of physical therapy options for treatment in the hospital, the polio ward itself was mercifully short-lived after the Salk polio vaccine arrived in Hastings in April 1955.

Beginning as a new staff nurse in ’63, she earned her B. A. at Hastings College in 1965, and became an instructor in nursing.

After time off for childbirth herself (her son Tim, born 1970, is now on the Mary Lanning medical staff), she returned to work just in time for the opening of the new north tower, in November 1970.

Since 1996, Mary Lanning Healthcare Foundation has been helping Mary Lanning Healthcare expand and provide some of the most advanced healthcare offerings between Chicago and Denver.

In 2000, The Millenium Construction Project was completed, tripling the size of the Emergency Department and expanding the size of the Mary Lanning Healthcare Surgery Center.

The Morrison Cancer Center opened in 2004.

Then in 2008, Mary Lanning Healthcare embarked on The Century Project, which included a large addition on the north spanning seven stories and the transformation of several patient floors.