Celebrating five decades of serving Orange County with high-quality, compassionate care
An unwavering commitment to our mission has spurred our transformation from one hospital into one of California's largest academic health systems.
Discover new treatments, therapies and knowledge that advances medical knowledge and improves lives.
Train the next generation of physicians and health professionals to provide the highest level of evidence-based care as the clinical enterprise of the University of California, Irvine.
Provide the highest quality and compassionate care to everyone who comes through our doors.
On July 1, 1976, the Orange County Medical Center is purchased by the UC Board of Regents and is renamed UCI Medical Center. It becomes the primary teaching hospital of the UC Irvine College of Medicine. It is again renamed in 2025 to UCI Health — Orange.
It is verified by the American College of Surgeons as a level I adult and level II pediatric trauma center.
Patients receive essential healthcare through Federally Qualified Health Center services at the Anaheim location, which opened in 1979, and the Santa Ana location, which opened in 1980.
The 40,000-square-foot clinical facility, later named UCI Health Gottschalk Medical Plaza, begins offering comprehensive outpatient services in Irvine.
The UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is the first and only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center based in Orange County, and one of just 57 in the nation.
It is later renamed the UCI Health Chao Digestive Health Institute and remains the county’s only digestive health program based within an academic health system. UCI Health — Orange receives Magnet® designation for nursing excellence. It’s just the second hospital in California and the first in the county to receive the designation. It has been received five times, a distinction only 10% of Magnet hospitals in the U.S. can claim.
In 2009, we opened our Cardiovascular Center to meet the unique needs of our heart patients.
The seven-story, 459-bed facility is renamed UCI Douglas Hospital in 2010 in honor of M.A. Douglas, who donated $21 million to it.
It is one of the nation’s leading institutes dedicated to the treatment, diagnosis and research of conditions of the eye.
Four long-standing community hospitals join the health system in March: UCI Health — Fountain Valley, UCI Health — Lakewood, UCI Health — Los Alamitos, UCI Health — Placentia Linda.
The 144-bed, seven-story facility is the nation’s first all-electric acute care hospital. It completes the UCI Health — Irvine medical campus and brings the number of beds in the system to 1,461.
As the clinical arm of the UC Irvine School of Medicine, UCI Health has established leading clinical programs over the last 50 years that have brought much-needed access to advanced care, research and clinical trials in critical areas to treat the most complex conditions and solve some of medicine’s most pressing issues.
Check out the full news story: 50 years of UCI Health
Fifty years after its inception, UCI Health is now a six-hospital health system that will soon be seven
when the UCI Health — Irvine Rehabilitation Hospital opens its doors in July.
