Our History

A new mom, circa 1965, admires her baby.

In 1960, the founders of present-day Banner Thunderbird Medical Center (BTMC), opened a facility at Northern and 61st Avenue named Northwest Hospital.

This hospital was the culmination of a decade-long struggle to build a community hospital to serve the health care needs of the Northwest Valley's 40,000 residents. 

In 1983, the hospital moved north to our current location at 55th Avenue and Thunderbird Road, where a 75-bed facility was opened. At this time, the Northwest Valley population had swelled to 340,000 residents.

That theme of growth has continued virtually unabated. BTMC's capacity has grown to 374 beds during a 2001 expansion allowing us to keep pace with the nearly one million people now living in our service area. 

We're Growing!

The hospital is expanding again to meet the growing health care needs of the community. Work is underway on the addition of a new 200-bed patient tower, new main entrance, emergency department, cafeteria, and other areas. Construction on the tower is scheduled for completion in 2009.

The North Tower main entrance will open in June, 2008. Other backfill operations will continue through 2010. Once completed, Banner Thunderbird will offer 582-licensed, all private rooms, and will be the largest hospital in the Northwest Valley in the Phoenix metropolitan area.

Despite the growth and change, our dedicated employees, volunteers and physicians still hew to the core values that make health care a noble calling: to treat each patient and each other with compassion, integrity and excellence.

It's truly been a legacy of care and the story is far from over. Stay with us as we live out that legacy and strive to meet not just the health care needs of the community, but to exceed them one patient at a time.

Aerial photo of Banner Thunderbird Medical Center including
artist rendering of the new tower and parking structure