Valley General Hospital in Monroe is being taken over by EvergreenHealth, and will now be known as EvergreenHealth Monroe. EvergreenHealth is the new name of the Evergreen Medical Center in Kirkland, a hospital that is part of a King County Hospital District. This is the latest in a large number of smaller hospitals who found that they could not survive financially, or provide a full range of medical services, without the help of a larger healthcare partner.

Examples are Harrison Medical Center in Bremerton (now operated by Catholic Health Initiatives), Auburn Medical Center (now operated by Multicare), Stevens Hospital (now operated by Swedish Medical Center), and Northwest Hospital (now operated by the U.W. Medical Center). The trend is toward a Puget Sound medical care system dominated by a few large medical organizations: the U.W., Swedish, Multicare, PeaceHealth, and Catholic Health Initiatives. With the recent decision by Group Health to use Swedish rather than Virginia Mason for hospital care, one wonders whether Virginia Mason will be on the future target list for take-overs.

Evergreen announced that it will introduce entirely new services to the Monroe community, including 3-D mammography, expanded prenatal services, and a telemedicine service so Monroe physicians can easily consult with specialists at Evergreen, such as neurologists and cardiologists. They are considering whether to re-introduce a birthing center at Monroe so mothers could stay in the community and deliver their children. It was also announced that Fairfax Hospital, a private psychiatric facility in Kirkland, will open a 24-bed adult psychiatric unit at the Monroe facility.