Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center - Valleywise Health Celebrates 60 Years of Life-saving Care

PHOENIX, Oct. 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Sixty years ago, the Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center began to transform the way Valleywise Health cares for burn patients by providing innovative treatments that have become a model for hospitals across the country.

The burn center began as a five-bed unit in the original Maricopa County General Hospital. Today, it has 50 beds and is one of the busiest in the United States, boasting a 98% survival rate.

The burn center's service area and reputation have dramatically grown over the past 60 years:

• In March, it was re-verified as an adult and pediatric burn center by the American Burn Association, indicating the highest level of burn care. The burn center has received continual verification since its first ABA survey in 2000.
• In January, six patients from a Hawaii fireworks explosion were flown to the burn center for treatment.
• In June 2024, the center nearly tripled in size by moving to occupy the entire fourth floor of the new Valleywise Health Medical Center.

The burn center cares for about 1,500 inpatient and 12,000 outpatient burn victims a year. "Fortunately, most of those injuries are smaller injuries, but some of them are large. We are the resource for burn injury for not just Phoenix and Maricopa County, but also the entire state of Arizona and pretty much most of the Southwestern United States," said Dr. Kevin Foster, burn center director.

In addition to the surgeons and nurses, Valleywise Health's burn center includes a multidisciplinary team of wound care technicians, dietitians, physical and occupational therapists, respiratory therapists, pharmacists, social workers, psychologists, discharge planners and outreach coordinators.

"The discussion today isn't about keeping people alive, it's about restoring burn survivors' quality of life," Foster said. "Our new burn center is really designed to do that."

To learn more, go to ValleywiseHealth.org/Burn.

ABOUT VALLEYWISE HEALTH:
With locations throughout Maricopa County, one of the country's fastest growing metro areas, Valleywise Health has a proud 147-year tradition of providing exceptional care, without exception, every patient, every time. Today, the health system includes one of the nation's top public teaching hospitals, a world-renowned burn center and Arizona's largest HIV primary care center. From a new state-of-the-art acute care hospital, including the Diane & Bruce Halle Arizona Burn Center and Level I Trauma, to three behavioral health hospitals and 11 community health centers, Valleywise Health is here for every member of the community. To learn more, please visit ValleywiseHealth.org.

SOURCE Valleywise Health