MaineHealth Memorial Hospital North Conway NH

MaineHealth Memorial Hospital is a not-for-profit, 25-bed Critical Access Hospital located at 3073 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, NH 03860. Serving the Mount Washington Valley of northern New Hampshire and western Maine since 1911, the hospital provides a broad range of inpatient and outpatient services to both year-round residents and the region’s substantial seasonal visitor population. In May 2026, the hospital earned a four-star Overall Hospital Quality Rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, placing it among the nation’s higher-performing hospitals for quality, safety, and patient care. Memorial Hospital became a member of the MaineHealth system in 2018 and is staffed by a care team of 525.

History and Community Role

Memorial Hospital was founded in 1911 when local physicians joined with a community benefactor to build a hospital that North Conway and the Mount Washington Valley deserved, and it has operated continuously with that community-first mission for more than a century.

From its founding, the hospital established its identity as “the hospital this community deserves,” a phrase that has guided institutional decision-making through multiple generations of facility growth and service expansion. The hospital grew and modernized throughout the twentieth century while retaining the personalized, relationship-based character that distinguishes small community hospitals from larger urban medical centers.

In 2018, Memorial Hospital joined the MaineHealth integrated health system, Maine’s largest healthcare network. This affiliation gave the hospital access to a comprehensive network of care including world-class specialists, a Level I Trauma center at Maine Medical Center in Portland, comprehensive pediatric services through the Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, an extensive behavioral health network, and diagnostic, home health, and hospice services across the system. The MaineHealth partnership preserved Memorial’s community hospital identity while expanding the resources available to both patients and clinical staff.

Patients exploring other hospitals within the MaineHealth network can review the profiles of Maine Medical Center in Portland, the system’s flagship academic medical center and Level I Trauma Center, and LincolnHealth in Damariscotta, another MaineHealth community hospital serving coastal Maine.

Service Area and the Mount Washington Valley

MaineHealth Memorial Hospital serves fifteen New Hampshire towns and six western Maine communities, providing healthcare access in a four-season mountain recreation region dominated by ski resorts, hiking trails, and the Presidential Range of the White Mountains.

The hospital’s New Hampshire service area includes Albany, Bartlett, Center Conway, Center Tuftonboro, Conway, Eaton Center, Effingham, Freedom, Glen, Intervale, Jackson, Madison, North Conway, Ossipee, and Tamworth. On the Maine side, the hospital serves Brownfield, Denmark, Fryeburg, Hiram, Lovell, and Porter. Together these communities form a geographic area defined by rural character, outdoor recreation culture, and significant seasonal population variation driven by ski season and summer tourism.

The landscape of the Mount Washington Valley is anchored by the Presidential Range, including Mount Washington — New England’s tallest peak at 6,288 feet. The region hosts multiple ski areas, extensive lake and river recreation, and hundreds of miles of hiking, biking, and snowmobile trails. This outdoor recreation profile shapes the hospital’s clinical demand in a distinctive way: orthopedic injuries, sports-related trauma, and recreation-associated medical events represent a significant and consistent portion of emergency and specialty care volume. The hospital’s orthopedic and sports medicine program has been deliberately built to address this regional demand.

Clinical Services

MaineHealth Memorial Hospital offers more than 20 clinical service categories including emergency care, surgery, childbirth, oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, diabetes care, behavioral health, and rehabilitation, all on the North Conway campus.

The hospital’s 24-hour emergency department serves both community residents and visitors to the Mount Washington Valley region. Given the volume of outdoor recreation activity across all four seasons, the emergency department manages a high proportion of traumatic injuries alongside standard emergency presentations. The surgical center supports both inpatient and outpatient procedures, with orthopedic arthroscopy representing a significant portion of the surgical caseload. Clinical nutrition services, cardiopulmonary rehabilitation, wound care, and IV infusion therapy for oncology patients are available on site, reducing the need for patients to travel to Portland or other larger centers for routine specialized services.

Orthopedics and Sports Medicine

The Memorial Hospital orthopedic and sports medicine practice has expanded to five surgeons and two physician assistants, offering arthroscopic surgery, joint replacement, concussion management, and comprehensive musculoskeletal care aligned with the region’s outdoor recreation patient population.

The orthopedic practice at Memorial Hospital reflects the clinical reality of serving a mountain recreation community. Skiers, snowboarders, hikers, mountain bikers, runners, and other active individuals of all ages sustain musculoskeletal injuries at a rate that makes orthopedic care a primary clinical driver for the hospital. The practice’s growth reflects deliberate investment in local orthopedic capacity to keep patients from having to travel to Portland or Boston for procedures that can be performed in North Conway.

Surgeons in the practice are board-certified and diagnose and treat conditions including fractures, ligament tears, joint disease, nerve compression, congenital anomalies, and arthritis across all age groups. Arthroscopic procedures, including knee reconstruction, shoulder reconstruction and repair, and ankle arthroscopy, can all be performed at Memorial’s surgical center. Sports medicine within the practice emphasizes return-to-sport rehabilitation, injury prevention, and concussion management alongside the arthroscopic surgical caseload.

As orthopedic surgeon Dr. Joshua Knowles explained at the time of his arrival, the goal of the expanded practice is to create a system where patients can receive care without leaving the community. “There are a lot of considerations when a patient must travel for care,” he noted. “We are creating an orthopedic department that maximizes the hospital’s ability to care for people without them having to go to other places.” When complex cases do require higher-level resources, the MaineHealth system provides access to specialists at Maine Medical Center’s Level I orthopedic trauma program in Portland. According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, access to orthopedic care within a patient’s own community significantly improves compliance with post-operative rehabilitation and long-term functional outcomes.

Family Birth Center and Women’s Health

The Memorial Hospital Family Birth Center provides obstetric care including midwifery services, a breastfeeding support group, and prenatal substance use treatment, making it one of the more comprehensive birth centers available in rural northern New Hampshire.

The Family Birth Center offers both physician and certified nurse midwife attendance for births, allowing patients to select a care model that aligns with their preferences and clinical needs. The center’s weekly breastfeeding support group, facilitated by a lactation specialist, is free and open to new mothers and their babies and siblings. This community-facing support program extends the hospital’s reach beyond the immediate postpartum period and supports infant nutrition outcomes in a region with limited lactation resources.

The prenatal substance use treatment program addresses a public health priority in northern New Hampshire, where opioid use disorder has affected a significant number of expectant mothers. By integrating this program within the Family Birth Center, Memorial Hospital offers coordinated care that supports maternal recovery while preparing for healthy deliveries and monitoring neonates for withdrawal symptoms during the newborn period. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, access to integrated prenatal substance use treatment is among the most effective interventions for improving maternal and infant outcomes in communities affected by opioid use disorder.

The Miranda Center for Diabetes

The Miranda Center for Diabetes at MaineHealth Memorial Hospital provides specialized endocrinology and diabetes education services for patients managing Type 1, Type 2, and gestational diabetes in the Mount Washington Valley.

Diabetes management requires consistent longitudinal support that is difficult to access when patients must travel long distances for specialist care. The Miranda Center addresses this gap by providing local endocrinology services, certified diabetes education, and individualized care planning. Clinical nutrition services are coordinated with the diabetes program to support dietary management alongside pharmacological treatment. The center integrates with the hospital’s primary care practices to ensure patients receive coordinated chronic disease management without gaps between specialist and generalist care.

The Merriman House — Senior Memory Care

The Merriman House, a 45-bed nursing home on the hospital campus, specializes in care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders, providing a dedicated long-term care environment within the broader Memorial Hospital campus.

The Merriman House benefits from its co-location with the hospital, giving residents immediate access to medical services and specialist consultations without the delays and transfers associated with standalone nursing homes. The facility’s focus on memory care reflects a population need in the Mount Washington Valley region, where a significant proportion of year-round residents are older adults drawn by the quality of life, scenic environment, and small-community character of the area.

Patients and families researching similar campus-integrated senior care options within the MaineHealth network may also review the profile of LincolnHealth in Damariscotta, which maintains Cove’s Edge skilled nursing and long-term care, Riverside memory care, and Chase Point Assisted Living on its campus in a comparable model.

Quality, Accreditation, and Patient Access

MaineHealth Memorial Hospital earned a four-star CMS Overall Hospital Quality Rating in May 2026 based on patient outcomes, safety, readmissions, mortality, patient experience, and timeliness of care — placing it well above the national average for hospitals in its class.

The CMS Star Rating system evaluates more than 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals using a standardized quality measure set. A four-star rating indicates performance that is well above average compared to hospitals nationwide, a significant achievement for a 25-bed Critical Access Hospital serving a rural mountain community. Hospital President Tricia Costigan attributed the rating to the care team’s “deep commitment to providing safe, reliable, and compassionate care.”

The hospital accepts Medicare, Medicaid, and most commercial insurance plans. Financial assistance is available for uninsured patients and those unable to afford care through the hospital’s financial assistance program, reachable at 603-356-5461 extension 2220. Same-day and next-day appointments are becoming more consistently available across the hospital’s primary care and specialty practices. Patients can schedule appointments or access medical records through the MaineHealth MyChart portal at mychart.mainehealth.org.