Kaweah Delta Health Care District is a 581-bed district with eight campuses in Tulare and Kings counties serving the Central Valley of Visalia. Its campuses consist of Kaweah Delta Medical Center, Kaweah Delta South Campus, Kaweah Delta West Campus, Kaweah Delta Porterville Dialysis, Kaweah Delta Woodlake Health Clinic, Kaweah Delta Exeter Health Clinic, Kaweah Delta Lindsay Health Clinic and Sequoia Regional Cancer CenterRadiation Oncology in Hanford. Kaweah Delta operates as a non-profit hospital, with less than 1% of funding coming from taxpayers. It received certification as a Level III Trauma Center in 2010, making it the only trauma center in the Greater Visalia Area. In July 2013 Kaweah Delta established residency training programs in Family Practice and Emergency Medicine, followed by a Psychiatry Residency program in 2014, Surgery and Transitional Year programs in 2015, and an Anesthesia residency in 2017. As of the academic year 2018, all six Kaweah residency programs are accredited by the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education, and include a total of over 100 training positions.
History
The Kaweah Delta Hospital District was formed in March 1961 by a vote of the community. The Tulare County Board of Supervisors appointed the first governing board. After the establishment of the District's physical boundaries and years of planning, operation of Kaweah Delta District Hospital commenced July 1, 1963, when the Board of Directors leased the former Visalia Municipal Hospital, a 68-bed facility and provided basic health care needs to the local community. This building, constructed in 1936, was in use until a new hospital was ready in 1969. Kaweah Delta Hospital is still in operation at this site. In 2004, the southwest tower along Mill Creek was constructed. It was the site of the Automobile Club of Southern California after it moved from its first office in Visalia in 1941. Kaweah Delta’s six-floor Acequia Wing opened its doors in 2009, focused on cardiovascular health. It added a new Telemetry Department, Cardiac Surgery and Catheterization Labs, three surgery suites and a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Additionally, the wing added 38 post-delivery rooms for mothers and babies and increased the size of the Emergency Department, which handles more than 80,000 visits a year. The expanded ED includes four state-of-the-art trauma bays, four critical-care beds, eight new treatment rooms and a helipad.
