The QEH is located on a large forested campus originally known as Falconwood Farm in the northeast corner of the city adjoining the neighbourhoods of East Royalty and Sherwood, overlooking the Hillsborough River.

The QEH is a full-service health care facility that provides community services to residents of Queens County and is a major referral centre for specialty services for residents across Prince Edward Island.

At the same time, the main entrance to the QEH off Riverside Drive was upgraded and the emergency department was expanded.

The opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1982 also saw the end of abortion services in the province, which had been provided at the Prince Edward Island Hospital since the late 1960s.

One of the conditions that the Roman Catholic Church placed on the provincial government of Premier James Lee for merging the Catholic-affiliated Charlottetown Hospital with the secular and publicly operated Prince Edward Island Hospital into the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital was that all abortion services in the province be discontinued.