BOUNTIFUL—It was 50 years ago that Lakeview Hospital opened its doors in Bountiful. The decision to build Lakeview came about because of the overcrowding at South Davis Community Hospital that was built in 1961. The new hospital was built to serve the growing needs of the Davis County community. 

 Today, that is still the hospital’s mission – to serve the public. “Our mission is for the care and improvement of human life,” said Lakeview CEO, Troy Wood, who has been at the hospital for 25 years. “Then at Lakeview we add a very personal promise. And that promise is to provide the quality of health care we would want for our closest loved ones.” 

Wood said there are several landmark changes that have been made since Lakeview opened. “The hospital doubled in size in the early 80s. We doubled the size of the ER in 2012. Then we created a brand new ICU in 2016.”

This year the hospital has the most expensive and most significant project, he said. “We’re going to kind of re-lay out the first floor of the hospital. And in that process we'll also add two ORs. So it’s the most significant investment that we’ve made in the 50 years price wise.”

The population grows, it ages, said Wood. “The types of services that we offer have become more central as we have an aging population in Bountiful, Centerville and North Salt Lake. So a lot of procedures we’ve been doing are orthopedic and urology.”

Lakeview has an amazing birthing center as well, he said. “In this kind of community you get to be one of maybe four or five patients, not one of 30, and that becomes a very one-on-one type of birthing experience. So that’s the advantage of living in an aging community that if you’re still having babies this is the place.”

Wood said the key things they’ve been working on to improve the hospital over the years have been an evolution. “It’s an evolution of our services, our reputation, our facilities and the impact that we have while maintaining our mission.”

“I think from a clinical or nursing standpoint, what stands out about Lakeview is every single leader, every single clinician that walks through our doors is committed to our mission statement,” said Chief Nursing Officer, Anna Marie Dickey. “So our clinical outcomes are not by happenstance. They are because of the hard work and the focus that our teams put into creating those outcomes.”

Great outcomes are also driven by culture and how people show up, she said. “It’s really the commitment of every single person that comes into our hospital, not just our clinical staff, but our auxiliary staff and support staff.”

Pam Clark has been a nurse at Lakeview for 45 years. “I started here when I graduated from the nursing program at Brigham Young University," she said. “Things have changed a lot. We didn’t have an out patient department. Patients stayed a lot longer than they do now. It’s much more efficient today.”

Davis County Clipper article about the ICU. Courtesy of University of Utah library archives

 The emergency room and ICU departments have grown significantly, said Clark. “The ICU was just a small, tiny department now it’s very big.”

When COVID hit, Clark said they were prepared. “We’d certainly trained but we’d never dealt with anything like that and nobody thought something like that would happen.”

 Clark said the staff really stepped up during the pandemic. “People were dedicated to staying here. They stayed to take care of the patients. Even though it was a scary time.” 

No one expected the number of patients there were and the length of their stay, she said. “Many didn’t make it. It was hard for all of us to go through that. But we did have some amazing outcomes for others.” 

“Being a nurse has been the best decision I’ve ever made,” said Dickey. “I wake up every morning and I love to come to my job. I love to come to work. It’s what I’m passionate about. It feels my cup. I feel very blessed that I get to wake up to a job that I love.”