Local medical school professors Drs. Alton Ochsner, Edgar Burns, Guy A. Caldwell, Francis E. LeJeune, and Curtis Tyrone each contributed their own money to open the first private group practice clinic in New Orleans, similar to the models of the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic.

In 1952, construction began on the new Ochsner Foundation Hospital.

Dr. John Ochsner performed the first heart transplant in the Gulf South region.

Leonard J. Chabert Hospital opened in Houma, Louisiana, as part of Louisiana’s charity hospital system. Under Dr. Frank Riddick’s leadership, Ochsner’s graduate medical education programs developed a strong affiliation with Chabert. This facility gave the residents learning opportunities to care for patients within the charity system.

With guidance and oversight from the Ochsner Clinic, South Louisiana Medical Associates was developed as a group practice that contracted with the State of Louisiana to provide senior staff supervision of hospital activities, patient care and medical education.

Dr. Frank A. Riddick, CEO of the Alton Ochsner Medical Foundation, and Dr. Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Ochsner Clinic, dedicated two years of tireless work to negotiation between the parties.

On August 31, 2001, the clinic and the foundation agreed to consolidate into a single organization, the not-for-profit Ochsner Clinic Foundation, later designated the Ochsner Health System, with Dr. Patrick Quinlan as chief executive officer and a unified board from the predecessor organizations.

The unified organization with a single decision-making body and single management structure was considered essential to function and succeed in a changing medical and economic environment by eliminating duplicative and sometimes competing management, governing, and operating structures.