Samaritan Albany General Hospital has been a pillar of our community for 100 years, providing exceptional care to generations of families. Dive deeper into the hospital’s rich history and the stories that make Samaritan Albany General Hospital special. Head to the dedicated history page to discover more!
Community leaders in Benton, Lincoln and Linn counties came together to establish a unified health care system: Samaritan Health Services. They understood that cooperation, rather than competition, would strengthen and expand local health care options for their own families and neighbors.
Today, Samaritan Health Services is a nonprofit network of hospitals, physician clinics and health services with a long tradition of caring for the mid-Willamette Valley and central Oregon Coast communities. Our passion is providing world-class health care to our friends and neighbors. On the job and off, each of us brings the caring and personal commitment to enhance the health of the region we call home.
Each of Samaritan’s five hospitals can chronicle its caring service to the community. The history of the regional network that is today called Samaritan Health Services is now more than two decades old.
Born of a common mission to provide exemplary health care and keep decision-making local, Lebanon’s Mid-Valley Healthcare and Corvallis’ Samaritan, Inc. were the first to merge in 1997 to form the nonprofit Samaritan Health Services. The merger reflected the belief that an integrated organization would serve their communities more effectively and efficiently.
Two years later, they were joined by Albany’s FirstCare Health, which included a hospital, physicians group and outpatient services.
By 2002 Samaritan expanded to include the central Oregon Coast. Samaritan now operates hospitals in Lincoln City and Newport as part of long-term management contracts with the North Lincoln Health District in Lincoln City and the Pacific Communities Health District in Newport.
Today the five Samaritan-affiliated hospitals – together with associated physician clinics and several health plans – continue to serve their local communities while working to “build healthier communities together.”
With the communities across the region working together, Samaritan was able to grow their network of clinics and programs to form Samaritan Heart Center, the Samaritan Cancer Program, Samaritan Mental Health, Samaritan Heartspring Wellness, Samaritan Evergreen Hospice House, the Samaritan Early Learning Center, SamFit and much more.
Samaritan’s commitment to education and lifelong learning helped form robust medical education programs in partnership with Linn-Benton Community College, Oregon State University, Oregon Health & Science University and Western University of Health Sciences. In a truly unique partnership between Samaritan and Western University of Health Sciences, the first class of 100 osteopathic medical students began studies in 2011 on a 54-acre health sciences campus in Lebanon. The college of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest was the first new medical school in Oregon in more than 100 years.
Samaritan is actively involved in planning for the future of health care.Oregon’s 2011 Health Transformation Bill created opportunities to integrate care for Oregon Health Plan members within Coordinated Care Organizations. We are part of the InterCommunity Health Network Coordinated Care Organization (IHN-CCO) which serves our region. The IHN-CCO includes local public, private and nonprofit partners working to redesign how health care is delivered and to unify health services and systems for Oregon Health Plan members in Benton, Lincoln and Linn counties.
