Home Our Heritage - Centura Health
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Over a century of service to Colorado communities. |
Centura Health hospitals and services have served Colorado since 1996, but our 12 hospitals have served Colorado communities for decades, some for more than 125 years. Our sponsors—Catholic Health Initiatives and Adventist Health System—have long provided loving, leading edge care to those in need throughout Colorado. The Catholic community is renowned for its history of helping heal those who have nowhere else to turn. Seventh-day Adventists have promoted whole person care and healthier lifestyles. Together these two organizations have forged an organization unlike any other.
Adventist Health System
In 1866, Seventh-day Adventists opened their first medical institution in Battle Creek, Michigan. Under the guidance of church founder, Ellen White, and leading Adventist physician, John Harvey Kellogg, the Western Health Reform Institute was established.
The institute gained an excellent reputation for using natural methods, the best of modern science and healthful living principles to treat and prevent disease. Notables like Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Dale Carnegie, J.C. Penney and others came to Battle Creek to learn how to take care of their health.
What began at the institute, to a large degree, started a revolution in the diet, exercise and health care habits of thousands of Americans. The breakfast food industry began with Dr. Kellogg and the Western Health Reform Institute. Vegetarianism also was promoted as a way to live more healthfully.
In 1895, as more and more people moved west, the Boulder Sanitarium, now Avista Adventist Hospital, was opened. It was the third Adventist medical institution opened in the United States. Later, in 1930, Henry Porter, a Denver businessman, donated the money and land to open Porter Adventist Hospital.
In addition to those two original Colorado Adventist hospitals, two more were added in recent years: Littleton Adventist Hospital in 1989 and Parker Adventist Hospital in 2004.
In 1996, Centura Health was formed. This collaborative effort helped Catholic Health Charities and the Adventist hospitals of Colorado carry out their ministries more effectively.
In 2001, the four Adventist hospitals of Colorado became a member of Adventist Health System (AHS), which then became the Adventist sponsor to Centura Health.
AHS had its beginnings in 1907 with the establishment of Orlando’s Florida Hospital. Since that time, AHS has grown to care for more than 4 million patients each year. AHS operates hospitals in Florida, the Midwest and Colorado and has become one of the largest protestant health care systems in the United States.
Currently, more than 600 health care facilities, worldwide, are affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church. While more than 150 years have passed since Adventist health care began, the goal remains the same: to serve all members of the community with excellent and compassionate health care.
Catholic Health Initiatives
For more than 100 years the Sisters of Charity have faithfully carried out the healing mission of Jesus. From the hills of Cincinnati, Ohio to the western territory of New Mexico and the mountains of Colorado, they built hospitals, trained nurses and established a long-lasting heritage. As chief executive officers, supervisors, bedside nurses and in many other capacities, they met the needs of people through excellent care and loving compassion.
They engaged the laity in the governance of increasingly complex organizations and, with their guidance and community support, continued to expand facilities and increase the delivery of Catholic health care services.
By the later part of the 20th Century the dynamics of change within religious congregations and the competitive environment of health care delivery required strategic adaptation to strengthen Catholic presence in health care and to maximize resources for the sake of the mission. In 1987, the Sisters of St. Francis of Colorado Springs, Colorado transferred their facilities in Denver, Colorado Springs and Albuquerque to the Sisters of Charity Health Services in Colorado. This transfer also included their facilities in Omaha, Lincoln and Kearney, Nebraska.
A significant initiative that occurred in 1996 was the formation of Centura Health, which brought the Sisters of Charity Health Services to Colorado into a joint operating agreement with the Adventist hospitals of Colorado. This collaborative effort offered a model of Christian partnership to increase the effective stewardship of the health care ministry.
Also in 1996, Sisters of Charity Health Services Colorado with Franciscan Health System of Aston, Pennsylvania and Catholic Health Corporation of Omaha, Nebraska, consolidated their systems in the formation of Catholic Health Initiatives. The founding congregations of Catholic Health Initiatives entrusted in this new organization the mission and ministry they had initiated and sustained for more than a century. Through this model of partnership, the healing ministry of Christ will continue to flourish, rooted in the faith and tradition of its origins and remain faithful in its legacy of healing service and compassionate care.
Today, Centura Health associates meet the needs of more than a half million Coloradans each year. As the largest health care system in the state, with acute care hospitals, senior communities, home care and hospice services, as well as clinics throughout Colorado, Centura’s mission compels our associates to provide compassionate, excellent health care to all who enter our doors.
Catholic Health Initiatives Adventist Health System
