It is one of the primary healthcare delivery systems in the north San Fernando Valley, serving the area's large working-class population.

In 1962, Olive View Hospital performed the first open heart surgery successfully in the San Fernando Valley, and one of the first in Southern California.

The hospital was severely damaged six weeks after it opened during the 1971 San Fernando earthquake on February 9, 1971, which caused the collapse of the four stairwell wings, as well as the parking structure.

On March 9, 1975, Department of Health Services Security Officer Murray F. Olsen was killed in the line of duty on the grounds of Olive View Medical Center.

Olsen observed a suspect crash his truck through the gates of the medical center parking lot, and race onto the vacant hospital grounds.

[3] It also served as the set for a nuclear war-damaged then-futuristic jail facility in the TV series Mission Impossible in the seventh-season episode "Two Thousand".