Overview: Sharp Grossmont Hospital
From the beginning, the hospital strove to provide cutting-edge care to women and their newborns.
On Friday, Sharp Grossmont Hospital is set to mark its 70th anniversary.
The hospital has come a long way since it opened in 1955, with just 110 beds to serve the 70,000 residents of East County. As the population has bloomed to half a million residents, the hospital has grown to 562 beds to care for them.
With its nationally-recognized maternity care, it’s the location where many East County residents are born, including some staff now working at the hospital.
Denise McBurney-McEntee, 60, was born at the hospital a decade after it opened and raised in La Mesa.
Then her mom got her an interview as a cashier at Grossmont. Forty-one years later, she works as a manager for patient access services, thanks in part to the education the hospital provided.
“It’s just really exciting to see it develop over the decades that I’ve been here,” McBurney-McEntee said in a phone call. “The people, the services, the opportunities, have just been amazing.”
On Monday, Aug. 11, staff members, including McBurney-McEntee, gathered on the helipad to spell out 70 for an aerial photograph.
“It was inspiring to see more than 130 team members unite for this important milestone event at Sharp Grossmont Hospital. It’s a testament to the spirit of the Sharp Grossmont family, who are proud to call this hospital their home,” said Bruce Hartman, director of marketing and communications, who has worked for 20 years at Sharp Grossmont.
From the beginning, the hospital strove to provide cutting-edge care to women and their newborns.
A year after opening, Grossmont became the first hospital in San Diego and only the second in the nation to successfully separate conjoined twins. Gary and Larry Hutchens both survived their fused spines being separated by surgery a week after birth.
More recently, the hospital opened the Burr Heart & Vascular Center in 2018.
Covering a large territory
The Grossmont Healthcare District includes many of San Diego’s most rural areas like Pine Valley, Campo, Potrero and Jacumba. It covers 750 square miles.
For many, the not-for-profit hospital in La Mesa is the closest location to receive emergency medical care, which explains the high volume in the emergency room.
“It’s really been an icon for the community, extending well out into East County,” McBurney-McEntee said.
While La Mesa is a suburban city, Grossmont’s service for rural areas remains key, as more than 100 rural hospitals across the nation have closed in the last decade.
With rural communities tending to be poorer, older and with more chronic health conditions, this poses a significant problem for public health.
If it takes 90 minutes to drive to the nearest lab for imaging, patients may wait until they are sicker to seek treatment, leading to worse health outcomes.
The hospital caters to the specific needs of these communities by offering in-home infusions.
With partners, the hospital founded the free Rural Health Discharge Program in 2023 so a public health nurse or fire captain paramedic could provide follow-up care for 30 days after a hospitalization so rural residents do not need to return to the hospital for the same issue.
Grossmont Healthcare District, and then the hospital, were founded due to community need in East County.
In 1952, residents voted overwhelmingly to create the district to collect taxes, raise funds and build the hospital. Now the hospital has a public-private partnership with Sharp leasing the hospital while voters fill an oversight board.
“It’s just been so important to have this hospital, which is why it’s exciting to see the growth, because as our population continues to be plentiful, the hospital needs to keep up with that,” McBurney-McEntee, of La Mesa, said.
Continuing to grow
The campus keeps adding facilities.
In May, patients began staying in the Grossmont Hospital for Neuroscience which treats brain and spine tumors, spine surgeries, movement disorders, and significantly, strokes, with experts in multiple medical fields under one roof. It is San Diego’s most comprehensive neuroscience hospital, built partially because Grossmont treats the highest number of strokes in the region.
The new hospital also boasts a cutting-edge technology provided nowhere else in the area.
People with tremors, such as from Parkinson’s, can receive MR-guided focused ultrasound treatment.
While inside a magnetic resonance imaging machine, ultrasound beams target cells in the brain that are causing tremors. This non-invasive procedure can be life-altering, reducing symptoms and bringing movement control back to patients.
“We look forward to serving the community for many more generations to come,” Hartman said.
