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Our Story

NYU Langone Health is one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers. Our trifold mission to serve, teach, and discover is achieved daily through an integrated academic culture devoted to excellence in patient care, education, and research.

Our Leadership, Campus Transformation, and Community Service Plan

Guided by a three-fold mission to serve, teach, and discover, NYU Langone Health has achieved the stature of a preeminent academic medical center. We are home to 10 specialties ranked in the top 10 nationally, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The nation’s leading arbiters of healthcare performance—organizations like Vizient, The Leapfrog Group, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and The Joint Commission—have consistently named NYU Langone among the top hospitals nationwide for quality and safety. All of our hospitals have earned the Magnet designation for excellence in nursing and quality patient care from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, an honor achieved by only 9.4 percent of hospitals in the U.S. Our Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center is designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), its highest recognition of achievement. Rusk Rehabilitation is consistently ranked one of the top 10 rehabilitation programs in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

The stage for such accolades was set in 2007, when Robert I. Grossman, MD, an internationally distinguished neuroradiologist who had served as chair of NYU Langone’s Department of Radiology since 2001, was appointed the 15th dean of NYU School of Medicine and CEO of what was then named NYU Medical Center. But there were other essential components of the institution’s ascent—namely, the contributions of exceptional faculty, staff, and students, and the immense generosity of our philanthropic partners. “We have all the ingredients to ascend to the rarefied status of a world-class, patient-centered, integrated academic medical center,” Dr. Grossman declared at his investiture. His keen understanding of the institution—its rich history and untapped potential—would enable it to fulfill that aspiration.

Pioneers in Medicine

NYU Langone’s ascent has unfolded over nearly two centuries. The seeds of success were sown at the very beginning, in 1841, by Valentine Mott, MD, the premier surgeon of his day. That year, Dr. Mott led five other eminent physicians and scientists in founding the Medical College of New York University, NYU Langone’s precursor, with an inaugural class of 239 students.

NYU Langone’s first hospital, known as University Hospital, was established in 1948, a century after its Medical College. In 1963, a newly acquired site in midtown Manhattan—11 acres bounded by First Avenue and the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive, between 30th and 34th Streets—became the home of University Hospital’s new 18-story building. Adopting a novel concept in healthcare, the 363-bed acute-care facility—now Tisch Hospital—partnered with outpatient practices to speed the translation of scientific discovery to the clinic and allow physicians to conduct academic and research activities while maintaining private practice.

Though leadership added finite space for clinical care and research in the coming decades, the institution’s growth did not match the demands of a growing patient population in an increasingly complex healthcare environment. When Dr. Grossman took the helm, he made facility expansion and improvement a top priority.

Campus Transformation

In 2008, NYU Langone launched a Campus Transformation Plan, the most sweeping infrastructure modernization and revitalization project in its history, to more efficiently and effectively meet the demands of an increasingly complex healthcare environment. The ongoing initiative encompasses more than 15 million square feet of clinical, educational, and research space across the entire healthcare system. Eight years later, an Energy Building debuted that is now able to meet 70 percent of the power needs on our midtown Manhattan campus.

In 2018, a new Science Building, NYU Langone’s largest research facility, united teams of investigators previously housed in several facilities. That same year, the plan’s capstone project, the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Pavilion, became the only inpatient facility in New York City with exclusively private rooms. Of its 374 patient rooms, 68 reside in Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital, the city’s first new children’s hospital in nearly 15 years. Every step in the execution of the ambitious Campus Transformation Plan has been enabled by the generosity of philanthropic partners.

Healthcare Innovation

NYU Langone’s transformation has extended beyond physical architecture to its digital infrastructure. Two information technology projects have enabled the institution to set a new standard for patient-centered care. In 2011, NYU Langone implemented Epic, an electronic medical record system that digitized millions of paper medical records and provided a seamless online portal for patients and physicians, becoming the first healthcare institution in the New York metropolitan area to adopt a patient information system on an enterprise-wide basis. In a similar vein, Kimmel Pavilion, one of the most digitally sophisticated inpatient facilities in the U.S., features a host of innovative tools that empower patients and clinicians alike.

A robust information technology network has been vital to the success of NYU Langone’s steady growth and expansion, making total integration of patient care possible throughout our enterprise. The first hospital to merge with our institution was the Hospital for Joint Diseases, now known as NYU Langone Orthopedic Hospital. The 225-bed hospital, a long-time affiliate, became NYU Langone’s dedicated orthopedic hospital in 2006.

Growth and Expansion

A decade later, NYU Langone sought to bring its high-quality acute care to patients beyond Manhattan—and this geographic expansion, too, was made possible by philanthropic support. In 2016, we acquired Lutheran Medical Center, a 444-bed acute-care hospital in southwest Brooklyn. Within several years, NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn, as it was renamed, benefitted so greatly from our health system’s infusion of resources and expertise that it now qualifies as one of the safest hospitals not only in New York City, but in the nation. The only five-star hospital in Brooklyn, as ranked by CMS, NYU Langone Hospital—Brooklyn is the first and only hospital in Brooklyn to receive Magnet recognition for excellence in nursing and quality patient care.

In 2019, NYU Langone extended its reach once again, this time to Nassau County on Long Island. Our acquisition of Winthrop University Hospital, a 591-bed acute-care hospital in Mineola, enlarged the NYU Langone Health system by 25 percent. Thanks to the same rigorous quality control measures implemented at our Brooklyn hospital, NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island, as it was renamed, saw its average length of stay, a key measure of patient safety, decrease by nearly 20 percent in just 2 years.

With shorter hospital stays leading to more and more patient care being delivered in outpatient settings, NYU Langone has developed an extensive network of ambulatory care sites, bringing medical services directly to the communities where patients live and work. Since opening the first of these sites in 2008, NYU Langone has established outpatient centers and faculty group practices in more than 320 locations in the New York area, a constellation ranked among the best nationwide.

Transforming Medical Education

In pursuit of equally ambitious goals for NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Dr. Grossman has spearheaded innovations that have not only transformed the training of our own medical students, but inspired educational reforms at other medical schools nationwide. In 2010, NYU Langone’s focus on patient-centered care gave rise to a revamped curriculum that marked one of the most significant shifts in American medical education in a century. The Curriculum for the 21st Century, or C21, affords students earlier and more frequent interaction with patients, and continues to evolve with new learning pathways that offer students more opportunities for specialized training in areas best suited to their interests. Medical students, residents, and fellows at NYU Grossman School of Medicine receive much of their clinical training at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue, America’s oldest public hospital, founded in 1736.

In 2013, the school began offering an accelerated three-year MD degree for select medical students, an initiative designed to ease the financial burden of medical school and launch medical careers one year earlier than traditional students. The program made NYU Langone the first nationally ranked academic medical center in the U.S. to enable graduates to pursue a career in either primary care or the medical specialty of their choice in three years.

Then in 2018—and through a groundswell of generosity from hundreds of alumni, NYU Langone trustees, and other scholarship supporters—the school once again made history. NYU Grossman School of Medicine became the first top-ranked medical school in the nation to provide full-tuition scholarships to all new and current students, a bold strategy to reduce the staggering debt incurred by medical students due to the ever-rising cost of their education. The following year, NYU School of Medicine was renamed NYU Grossman School of Medicine in honor of Dr. Grossman’s landmark educational achievements and visionary leadership, which vaulted the school to national renown. Today, one in six medical school applicants nationwide set their sights on NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

In 2019, NYU Langone expanded its medical student training when it launched NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, a joint venture between New York University and NYU Langone Health. The school, which also provides full-tuition scholarships, is the only accelerated three-year MD program focused on primary care in New York State.

Groundbreaking Medicine

From its earliest days, NYU Grossman School of Medicine has trained some 24,000 physicians. Many of our alumni, as well as clinicians and researchers on our faculty, have set new standards for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and have made or contributed to breakthroughs in biomedical science. In 2015, a team of surgeons led by Eduardo D. Rodriguez, MD, DDS, the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and chair of NYU Langone Health’s Hansjörg Wyss Department of Plastic Surgery, performed the most extensive face transplant to date, followed in 2020 by the world’s first successful face and double hand transplant.

In 2021, a team of surgeons led by Robert A. Montgomery, MD, DPhil, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, the H. Leon Pachter, MD, Professor of Surgery, and chair of the Department of Surgery, performed the first investigational transplant of a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a brain-dead person whose bodily functions were sustained by mechanical support. In separate investigational procedures performed in June and July 2022, surgeons led by Dr. Robert Montgomery successfully transplanted hearts from genetically altered pigs into brain-dead patients, marking the latest advance toward addressing the nationwide organ shortage and developing a clinical protocol that would provide an alternative supply of organs for people with life-threatening heart disease.

Leaders in Research

Our team of more than 1,300 research faculty, including over 250 investigators, has amassed a portfolio of NIH funding that has grown from 129 million to $551 million over the past 16 years. Our research community hails from over 60 countries.

In 2021, NYU Langone Health was selected by the NIH to be the Clinical Science Core of the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative and received a $450 million parent award. Since then, NYU Langone has successfully constructed the RECOVER Consortium, making multiple subawards to a network of lead investigators studying the long-term effects of COVID-19 at 33 institutions across the nation. These researchers coordinate data, monitor protocols, and guide communications with patients and clinicians.

Our clinicians and researchers carry on a legendary tradition. Two of our alumni, Jonas Salk, MD, and Albert Sabin, MD, developed vaccines for polio, and one of our faculty members, Saul Krugman, MD, conducted research and helped formulate the policies for clinical use of vaccines against measles, rubella, and hepatitis B. A group of our physicians at Bellevue Hospital was the first to identify Kaposi’s sarcoma as an early symptom of AIDS. NYU Grossman School of Medicine counts among its faculty and alumni four Nobel laureates: Otto Loewi, MD, who determined that the primary language of nerve cell communication is chemical rather than electrical; Severo Ochoa, MD, who conducted landmark studies in biochemical genetics and nucleic acids; Baruj Benacerraf, MD, who performed groundbreaking research on genetic regulation of the immune system; and Eric Kandel, MD, who contributed to our understanding of basic mechanisms of the nervous system.

Achievement After Adversity

NYU Langone’s world-class reputation has been built on extraordinary achievements, and the institution’s response to tremendous trials has served to burnish it. When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City on October 29, 2012, the crisis brought out the best in our entire community. Within 13 hours, some 1,000 medical and professional personnel safely evacuated 322 patients under dire conditions, transferring them to 14 other hospitals. More recently, when New York City became the U.S. epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, some 1,800 of our clinicians and countless support staff volunteered for frontline service as our hospitals cared for more than 7,000 patients threatened by the virus.

Today, NYU Langone Health is one of the largest healthcare systems in the Northeast, with more than 46,000 employees. A broad and diverse community of philanthropic partners continues to drive our success and champion our mission. Tempered by adversity, we are better poised than ever to attain new heights, and better equipped than ever to fulfill our duty to patients, helping them maintain or regain their health and wellbeing. “As long as patients depend on us, often during their darkest hours,” says Dr. Grossman, “we must continue to strive to do better and be better.”

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