Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center has unveiled its new name.
After 55 years of operation, the hospital campus northeast of downtown Los Angeles was re-named Los Angeles General Medical Center. The county’s busiest health care center’s new motto will be, “Exceptional Care. Healthy Communities.”
An official announcement was expected Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the hospital’s Boyle Heights campus.
The county Board of Supervisors officially voted Tuesday to change the name. In her motion, Supervisor Hilda Solis cited widespread confusion between County-USC and the nearby Keck School of Medicine of USC.
She said research indicated no consistent name or brand by which the general public or even the patients and staff know the hospital, long known simply as General Hospital. Its image is still used in exterior shots for the long-running TV soap opera of the same name.
The original landmark Art Deco General Hospital structure, opened in 1933, was replaced by more than a billion dollars worth of new construction in 2010, although the old building still houses a wellness center.
County-USC is one of America’s busiest hospitals, annually serving roughly 1 million in-patients and almost 40,000 out-patients. More than 1,000 medical residents are trained per year by doctors from USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
