This year, The Valley Hospital will celebrate 75 years since its opening day, on August 8, 1951. To memorialize Valley’s history over the past seven decades, we are reflecting on the organization’s major milestones.
In this blog, we’ll highlight Valley’s continued growth and milestones in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Be sure to check back each month as we continue to share the history of The Valley Hospital! To learn more about Valley’s growth in prior decades, browse our blog posts here.
Valley in the 1990s
In 1991, Valley celebrated its 40th anniversary and was also designated as a Community Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Program by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons, the highest designation a community hospital can have.
The Valley Hospital Auxiliary celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1994, marking 50 years of service to the hospital and community.
To ensure seamless, high-quality, and compassionate care, Valley formed Valley Health System in 1997. This brought together inpatient, outpatient, and home care programs with the organization’s fundraising arm.
In 1998, there were many new beginnings, including a redesigned pediatric unit, a redesigned Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a renovated Same Day Surgery center. Additional new centers included the Breast Center, the Fertility Center, the Renal Care Center, the Center for Child Development, the Pediatric Sleep Disorders and Apnea Center, the Total Joint Replacement Center, the Stroke Center, and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Service and Magnetic Resonance Imaging Suite.
The decade concluded with The Valley Hospital Board of Trustees appointing Audrey Meyers as the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Valley Hospital.
Valley in the early 2000s
To mark the millennium, Valley places a time capsule in its new front entrance and lobby, known as The Shotmeyer Lobby. The time capsule included items such as the hospital’s mission, vision, and values statements; a copy of the hospital’s annual report; a millennium edition Beanie Baby; an American Online CD-ROM; and a copy of one of the year’s best-selling books, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
In 2001, The Robert and Audrey Luckow Pavilion opened, offering cancer care to patients at the Daniel and Gloria Blumenthal Cancer Center, with convenient access to same-day procedures at the Jaqua Same Day Surgery Center.
Valley also celebrated 50 years of medical excellence and service to the community that year and hosted a year-long celebration of events and activities.
In 2004, Valley celebrated being a recipient of the prestigious Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence, the nursing profession’s highest honor.
The next few years included more growth and advancements with the opening of a newly renovated and expanded emergency department (2005), the establishment of The Valley Heart & Vascular Institute (2007), and Valley being the first hospital in Bergen and Passaic counties to offer the neurointerventional biplane angiography system, an advancement in the diagnosis and treatment of stroke, brain aneurysms, brain and neck tumors, and other neurological conditions (2009).
Back in the Nineties
Outside of Valley, the United States experienced a decade of notable leaders and cultural moments. Here are a few facts from the decade.
Presidents: George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
Cost of Milk: A gallon was around $2.60
Cost of Gas: Averaged $1.30 per gallon
Historical Events: In the 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope launched (1990), the Soviet Union dissolved (1991), the World Wide Web was publicly debuted as an internet service (1991), Toni Morrison became the first African American woman to win the Novel Prize for literature (1993), Amazon was launched by Jeff Bezos (1994), the sitcom Friends first premiered (1994), the O.J. Simpson trial took place (1995), Princess Diana died (1997), J.K. Rowling published the first book in the Harry Potter series (1997), Bill Clinton was impeached but acquitted (1998), Google was founded (1998), and the euro debuted as European currency (1999).
Back in the Early Two Thousands
Presidents: Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-2009), and Barack Obama (2009-2017)
Cost of Milk: A gallon was around $2.80
Cost of Gas: Averaged $1.50 per gallon
Historical Events: In the early 2000s, the TV show Survivor debuted and popularized reality TV (2000), the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred (2001), the Afghanistan war began (2001), Apple released the iPod (2001), the U.S. space shuttle Columbia disaster occurred (2003), the Iraq war began (2003), Facebook debuted (2004), the Kyoto Protocol designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions went into effect (2005), Hurricane Katrina devasted much of New Orleans (2005), the FDA approved the first vaccine against cervical cancer – Gardasil (2006), Pluto was removed as a planet (2006), Netflix began streaming movies (2007), the Kindle was released (2007), the Great Recession occurred (2007-2009), Obama became the first African American to become president, and Michael Jackson died (2009).
Learn more about Valley's rich history in the video below!
