Our Story
CHI St. Gabriel’s Health is a multi-facility health care entity which also includes Family Medical Center (a multispecialty clinic), Little Falls Orthopedics (a orthopedic and podiatry practice), CHI Health at Home, a home health and hospice agency and Alverna Apartments (a 60-unit, HUD-subsidized senior housing complex), all located in Little Falls.
The cornerstone of CHI St. Gabriel’s Health is St. Gabriel’s Hospital, which was founded by the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls (FSLF) in 1891 and received its first patient in January 1892. The first hospital-only building opened in 1916 (portions still in use today). The hospital continued to grow throughout the 20th century until it reached a maximum of 124-beds in the early 1980s. The introduction of the Prospective Pricing System and changes in Medicare and other hospital reimbursement led to a gradual reduction in beds throughout the 1990s and eventually incentives related to becoming a critical access hospital (CAH) resulted in downsizing to our current license of 49-beds. St. Gabriel’s Hospital as well as its affiliated clinics and home health agency are certified by The Joint Commission, a national quality accreditation organization.
Family Medical Center is CHI St. Gabriel’s Health’s second largest entity with approximately 25 providers (physicians and mid-level practitioners) in the following specialties: family medicine, general surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics. It functions as a department of St. Gabriel’s Hospital and has locations in Little Falls, Pierz and Randall) and it joined CHI St. Gabriel’s Health in 2010.
Little Falls Orthopedics (LFO) has five orthopedic surgeons and two podiatrists who see patients through its primary location in Little Falls as well as satellite clinics throughout central Minnesota in the communities of Albany, Long Prairie, Melrose, and Sauk Centre. LFO surgeons perform a wide range of procedures at St. Gabriel’s Hospital as well as the hospital affiliated with its satellite locations. LFO joined CHI St. Gabriel’s Health in 2007.
Alverna Apartments is a 60-unit senior housing complex located on the CHI St. Gabriel’s Health campus in Little Falls. Rent for nearly all tenants is subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). It addition to apartment amenities such as stove, refrigerator, emergency pull cord, secure entrance, etc., Alverna also offers a noon meal to interested tenants and year-round access via enclosed walkways/tunnels to St. Gabriel’s Hospital, Family Medical Center and St. Otto’s Care Center, an adjacent long-term care and rehabilitative center. Alverna Apartments opened on the Little Falls campus in 1978.
CHI Health at Home is a Medicare-certified home health and hospice agency. It also functions as a department of CHI St. Gabriel’s Health and has consistently been ranked as an Elite Top 500 home care agency.
