[1] Situated on 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land donated to the orphanage by the Oregon Children's Aid Society, the hospital opened a school of nursing with the first class graduating in 1899.

[1] In 1916, Frank B. Wedel and his wife started the Deaconess Home and Hospital in a former hotel on Winter Street.

[14] The previous helipad was eliminated when the parking structure that it resided upon was torn down in 2006 to make way for the construction.

During the interim period helicopters landed in the Willamette University's McCulloch Stadium located in Bush's Pasture Park south of the hospital.

Service is provided to a three-county area that includes Marion, Yamhill, and Polk counties.

[16] Designed to replace the services of the state hospital system, the Salem facility has a 24-bed unit.

[16][19] The emergency department includes nearly 60 beds,[4] and is the busiest on the west coast between Los Angeles and the Canadian border, with an average of 316 patients treated each day.

[18] The Oregon Department of Human Services has designated the hospital as a Level II trauma center.