Health services in primary, secondary and tertiary care are offered to adult and neonatal patients.
A committee assembled to find a location initially supported using the campus of the United States Naval Observatory, since the Navy had planned to move its operations to near Charlottesville, Virginia.
Instead, the hospital center was given 47 acres of the U. S. Soldiers' and Airmen's Home's land, which was being leased at the time to a dairy farm.
[5] On May 7, 1998, Medlantic Healthcare Group, the Hospital Center's not-for-profit parent company, merged with Helix Health, a group of four Baltimore, MD-based hospitals, making the combined company the largest health care provider in the mid-Atlantic region.
[6] In addition to its cardiac care specialties, the Hospital Center is respected as a top facility in other areas including cancer, neurosciences, gastrointestinal disorders, endocrinology, women's services, transplantation and burn.
WCI provides comprehensive, interdisciplinary care including surgical, radiation, robotic and medical oncology services as well as counseling for patients and families, cancer education, community outreach program and clinical research trials.
Perhaps the Hospital Center's most wide-reaching presence is its MedSTAR Transport air ambulance service, which, as of 2008 had carried nearly 50,000 patients since its inception in 1983.
The American College of Surgeons consistently recognizes the MedSTAR Trauma program as one of the nation's best Level I shock/trauma units.
The hospital is an all-scenarios facility, designed to handle, for example, a huge influx of contaminated patients from a terrorist attack.
Design elements include mass decontamination, surge capacity, and preparedness for other emergencies such as an outbreak of bird flu.
The emergency department (ED) has added a lab located in the ED to expedite blood tests, ten large examination rooms that will hold three patients each, negative pressure capability to prevent potentially contagious air from escaping an examination room, and sterilization using vaporized hydrogen peroxide.