Company Profile
Gundersen Health System
Company Overview
Gundersen Health System is where caring meets excellence through a comprehensive health network of wholly owned services and regional partners. It's where nationally recognized quality meets dedicated, compassionate professionals, caring for patients in all stages of life.
And we bring that care as close to you as possible, with regional partners and clinics, eye clinics, nursing homes and more. Many of our highly trained specialists provide outreach services throughout the Tri-state Region, in person and via telemedicine. Specialists are also able to quickly consult with their colleagues, system-wide, share medical records and tests, and together provide a level of care that repeatedly distinguishes us as among the top five percent of healthcare organizations in the country.
Quality emergency care begins near home too, with regional emergency departments and air and ground ambulances integrated with heart and stroke protocols to expedite treatment and improve outcomes.
Caring meets excellence again and again — wherever you live — if you're receiving that care through the Gundersen Health System.
Company History
In 1995, Gundersen Clinic and Lutheran Hospital-La Crosse formed Gundersen Lutheran, Inc. In 2013 the organization was renamed Gundersen Health System.
The origins of Gundersen can be traced back the 19th Century when frontier attitudes about culture, manners and medicine prevailed. At that time, there were some “medical doctors,” but most received their degrees from diploma mills. The exception was Adolf Gundersen, whose European training quickly placed him as the city’s premiere physician.
His reputation as a surgeon grew so great that it was often said that the life cycle in La Crosse consisted of birth, christening, an operation by Gundersen, and much later hopefully death.
Before the Lutheran Hospital opened in 1902, many of the early operations were performed in patients’ homes. When local clergy first planned construction of a new hospital, Gundersen recognized the opportunity and served as the hospital’s first medical director.