Olive View opened on October 27, 1920 as the tuberculosis sanatorium for Los Angeles County, to relieve the overcrowding of TB patients at County General Hospital. Once TB could be cured, the census dropped dramatically. Olive View then evolved into an acute care hospital. The first open heart surgery in the San Fernando Valley and one of the first in Southern California was done successfully at Olive View Hospital in 1962.

In 1970, Olive View Hospital became Olive View Medical Center, a teaching hospital affiliated with UCLA School of Medicine. A new 888-bed hospital was dedicated in December 1970, only to be destroyed on February 9, 1971 by the 6.5 Sylmar earthquake. For the next sixteen years, Olive View served its patients through an interim facility at MidValley in Van Nuys.

On May 8, 1987 the new 377-bed-state-of-the-art replacement facility, built on the Sylmar site, opened. In 1992, Olive View incorporated UCLA in its name becoming Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. In May 1997, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center became a part of ValleyCare, a healthcare delivery system for the north San Fernando Valley.