Area Hospitals Continue Mission of Putting CARE Back into Healthcare

More than 61 million people live in rural communities like Skagit. Small towns we call home. Where folks wave hello, lend a hand, and work side by side. Where an entrepreneurial spirit can thrive and innovation sparks.

Rural America is an economic engine, providing goods and services that cross counties, state lines, borders. And it’s that power of rural communities that inspired the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health to designate the third Thursday of November as National Rural Health Day.

It’s a time to recognize and honor the tremendous efforts of our rural healthcare providers, hospitals and clinics that service our incredible neighborhoods.

Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County (EDASC) is giving a shout out to our two healthcare systems that bring care, compassion, and healing to our minds, bodies, and souls. 

PeaceHealth United General Medical Center

In the late summer of 1890, two members of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace convent in Newark, New Jersey, were given a charge: Build a hospital in a remote logging community in the Pacific Northwest to care for fisherman, mill workers, loggers, and their families.

Their journey would take them 2,900 miles across the country to the remote town of Fairhaven, Washington; one that would inspire the creation of St. Joseph Hospital, and go on to include five additional hospitals in Washington, Alaska, British Columbia and Oregon by 1936.

For over a century, the Sisters' vision of exemplifying the healing mission of Jesus through exceptional medicine, compassionate care, science and art has been the cornerstone of PeaceHealth.

Primary care, pediatrics, orthopedics, sports medicine, heart care, vascular care, cancer care, obstetrics, gynecology and dozens of specialized services are offered through the not-for-profit’s healthcare system. This includes a medical center in Sedro-Woolley, comprised of the hospital and medical clinic.

PeaceHealth’s spirit of giving is also evident in its support of the EDASC as a Signature Investor. Chief Administrative Officer Christopher Johnson is also a long-time member of our Board of Directors.

Skagit Regional Health

Three urgent care locations. Two emergency care locations. Two hospitals. Twenty four clinics.

Skagit Regional Health has emerged as the largest healthcare provider in the area, serving through excellence in care for Skagit, Island and North Snohomish counties.

That commitment is rooted in compassion, care and community. And its state-of-the-art services cover cancer care, cardiology, family medicine, surgical services, orthopedics and pediatrics; care that was not previously accessible in small, rural communities like ours.

Their mission is simple: provide exceptional healthcare, always. To put care back into healthcare; seeing everyone who walks through their doors as a mother, father, son, daughter …  a person. Not just a patient.

Improving lives through compassionate and innovative healthcare speaks to those core principles as they grow, develop and expand their facilities and services.

Philanthropy ranks high on their priority list, too. In 1988, the Skagit Regional Health Foundation was created as a nonprofit to raise, manage, and distribute donated funds and gifts to ensure quality healthcare services and programs.

Skagit Regional Health, an EDASC Signature Investor, was a sponsor of the 2025 Economic Forecast Night and is an active sponsor of the Leadership Skagit program. It operates under the leadership of President & CEO Brian Ivie.