Atrium Health

• In 1876, Jane Wilkes leads the effort to establish St. Peter's Hospital, originally called Charlotte Home and Hospital, in Charlotte's Fourth Ward.
• Charlotte Memorial Hospital opens in 1940, replacing St. Peter's Hospital, whose remaining patients are transferred to Charlotte Memorial on October 7.
• In 1943, Charlotte Memorial Hospital takes on a new legal status, known officially as the Charlotte Memorial Hospital Authority. This name was changed in 1961 to Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority.
• Charlotte Memorial Hospital Authority assumes ownership and management of Good Samaritan Hospital, the city's only hospital providing non-emergency care to racial minority patients.
• Charlotte Memorial Hospital adopts the first graphic version of its now-familiar "Tree of Life" logo in 1982.
• Charlotte Memorial Hospital changes its name to Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) in 1990, and CMC is designated as one of North Carolina's five Academic Medical Center Teaching Hospitals.
• The Charlotte Mecklenburg Hospital Authority begins using the name "Carolinas Healthcare System" in 1996.
• In 2019, CMC underwent the system-wide rebrand and is now Atrium Health's Carolinas Medical Center.[4]
• In 2020, Atrium Health and Wake Forest Baptist Health combined, creating a “next-generation academic health system.”[5]

• Atrium Health initiated a "nationally leading, innovative testing model," integrating actionable Geographic Information System (GIS) data with mobile medical units to address the testing disparity among underserved and minority communities.
• Atrium Health's Levine Children's Hospital is one of 30 sites across the world – and the only children's hospital in North Carolina – selected to open a clinical trial to test the efficacy of remdesivir in pediatric patients who test positive for COVID-19.[6]
• Atrium Health launched a new initiative, “Para Tu Salud” – simply translated to “For Your Health” – to further educate and inform Hispanic communities on how to stay safe and healthy.[7]
• Atrium Health expanded hospital capacity by opening new Atrium Health COVID-19 Virtual Hospital.
• The acute surgery division at Atrium Health's Carolinas Medical Center developed a "hospital blueprint" for handling essential operations during the COVID-19 pandemic to help guide hospital surgery departments through the crisis.[8]
• Atrium Health was invited to participate in the COVID-19 Community Research Partnership by Wake Forest Baptist Health, a nationally recognized academic medical center and health system based in Winston-Salem, N.C.[9]
• Atrium Health developed a new vaccine research program, “STRIVE for Healthier Futures,” with a goal of identifying a vaccine that safely and effectively prevents the spread of COVID-19. The STRIVE program, which stands for strategic research, innovation, vaccines, and engagement, consists of a "diverse, multi-disciplinary team of researchers, scientists, physicians, and other medical experts within the Atrium Health enterprise."[10]
• Atrium Health offers three new outpatient treatment clinical trials. These clinical trials are currently the only outpatient treatment trials available in the region to address COVID-19.[11]
• Atrium Health is the first healthcare system in North Carolina to administer an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer.[12] The organization says high-priority, patient-facing employees are "among the first in the nation to receive the vaccine."[13]

Atrium Health is based in Charlotte, NC. Carolinas Medical Center is the flagship hospital for the entire system (located between Dilworth and Myers Park). Atrium Health operates six freestanding Emergency Departments. These are 24-hour emergency care centers for the treatment of urgent and emergency medical conditions, but are not attached to a full service hospital. Known as Atrium Health Urgent Care, it is a system of 33 urgent care centers in the Charlotte metropolitan area. While a few are 24 hours, most are open from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., seven days a week (except Thanksgiving and Christmas).[14]

• Wake Forest School of Medicine] (The “academic core” of Atrium Health.[15] The main campus is located in Winston-Salem, NC, and a second location is expected to be built in Charlotte, NC.[16])
• Cabarrus College of Health Sciences (An education facility located on NE campus in Concord, NC)
• James G. Cannon Research Center (A research facility located on Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center] campus in the Dilworth neighborhood)
• Carolinas College of Health Sciences] (An education facility, on Atrium Health’s Carolinas Medical Center] campus in the Dilworth neighborhood)

In addition to providing patients with quality health care, Atrium Health operates long-term care facilities in the Charlotte Area. Other facilities of importance include:

• Carolinas Physician Network (Network of Physician Offices in North and South Carolina)
• Crawley Memorial Hospital (Defunct) - a Long-term acute care facility located in Boiling Springs
• Mercy School of Nursing (Defunct) (Education Facility, located in southwest Charlotte) [17]
• Sanger Heart & Vascular Institute is a cardiovascular practice in Charlotte, North Carolina.[18] It is the region's only clinic to offer minimally invasive heart bypass option and heart transplant center. Sanger includes more than 175 providers and 20 care centers across the Carolinas. Founded in 1956 by Paul Sanger and Dr. Francis Robicsek,[19][20]

• On June 9, 2016, it was reported that the U.S. Justice Department and the N.C. Attorney General's office filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Carolinas HealthCare System, alleging the chain illegally reduces competition in the local health care market.[29] Atrium Health settled the lawsuit with the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice on November 15, 2018. The settlement included injunctive terms restricting Atrium's ability to add provisions to its contracts that would be considered anticompetitive.
• On July 3, 2017 it was reported that Carolina's Healthcare System (CHS) had agreed to pay a $6.5 million False Claims Act settlement to settle charges over its billing practices brought by a whistle blower, U.S. Attorney Jill Rose said Friday. Prosecutors contended the Charlotte-based hospital system had been improperly “up-coding” claims for urine drug tests in order to receive much higher payments than CHS would have if billed properly. CHS contended that two separate consultants had reviewed its practices and had confirmed its coding selection amid “complex and constantly changing billing guidelines.” After two years into the process, CHS said it was in the system's best interest to resolve the charges.[30]
• On February 13, 2020, security guards at Atrium Health Lincolnton and the Lincoln County Sheriffs Department received media attention regarding an incident where a sixteen-year-old boy brought to the hospital's emergency room by his mother, was pushed, tased and tackled to the pavement from behind by Atrium Health security guards. When sheriff's deputies arrived, video shows a deputy hitting the now handcuffed boy, in the face twice after the boy spit blood at the deputy. The video also shows the deputy then aggressively approached the mother, yelling at her before being pulled to the ground by a second deputy, In an interview with WBTV, Sheriff Bill Beam defended his deputies saying they did nothing wrong and denying that the officer struck the boy in the face. The boy was arrested and charged with felony assault on a police officer.[31] On February 17, 2020, the juvenile entered guilty pleas to the charges; one count of simple assault and one count of consuming alcohol by a minor. According to media reports, the pleas were entered to avoid his being tried as an adult on the felony assault charge.[32]

• Atrium Health homepage
• Carolinas College of Health Sciences homepage
• Innovation Engine homepage