Emory University Hospital

Emory University Hospital

Aliyah L. Howell

Introduction to Healthcare

Abstract

Since its founding in 1904, the changes have impacted Emory’s efficacy positively instead of negatively. Because the healthcare services at Emory are at a constant rise in research studies, it has gained itself one of the most provident hospitals in Atlanta. Patients receive the most updated medicine and technology for their care. It also has the influenced changes on the U.S. health system overall positively through its research and new developments.

Emory University Hospital

Emory University Hospital, formerly known as Wesley Memorial Hospital, was founded in March 1904 as a small office space in downtown Atlanta mansion. It consisted of only fifty beds which were shortly after expanded past its capacity. Emory moved to its current location in Dekalb County that housed two hundred and seventy-five-bed facility.  Emory now has many locations in the Atlanta area as a nonprofit organization.

Its mission is to Serve Humanity by Improving Health through the integration of education, discovery and health care. Emory strives to exemplify excellence, caring, and integrity. With excellence, they are committed to continuous improvement through medicine and technology. Through caring, they strive to demonstrate concern and compassion for their patients and their families, treating each person with dignity as they attend to the needs of the mind, body, and spirit. In addition to excellence and caring, integrity is the practice of the highest ethical standards and honoring commitments. Emory takes a personal responsibility and ownership for their actions and demonstrates respect for their patients and their families, staff, and providers. They strive to be recognized as a leading academic health system, differentiated by discovery, innovation and compassionate, patient- and family-centered care.

The types of services provided by Emory include hospital, primary care, specialty care, and urgent care. Emory's cardiac care services include the treatment of patients with complex cardiac problems and total vascular care including cardiac and peripheral vessels. The hospital is the only multiple organ transplant center in Georgia and also performs combination transplants, such as heart/kidney and heart/lung. Emory's cancer treatment/oncology services, affiliated with Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute, include the coordination of medical, surgical, radiation oncology and diagnostic imaging resources to treat all facets of the disease. Doctors at Emory also perform blood and bone marrow stem cell transplants and participate in hundreds of cancer-related clinical trials, which provide patients with additional treatment options. Diagnostic radiology services at the hospital include, in addition to its positron emission tomography scanner, a cyclotron, and radiochemistry laboratory which make more detailed imaging possible.

Emory University Hospital and Emory Saint Joseph Hospital are the magnet hospitals of Emory Healthcare, which operates a total of seven hospitals. Emory Saint Joseph's services include cancer/oncology, emergency, cardiac, orthopedic and urology.

Emory has changed since the 1980s as a result of economic and political forces. In the year 1980, Dr. Andreas Gruentzig came to Emory University from Switzerland. The angioplasty used a “balloon catheter” designed by Dr. Gruentzig to insert into a clogged artery and pumped up to get the blood flowing again past the artery-blocking plaque. He taught the procedure to doctors at Crawford Long and Emory University Hospital. Sadly, in 1985, he and his wife were killed in a plane crash. Six years later, Dr. George Cierney III pioneered the use of reconstructive surgery to save infected bone from amputation by using antibiotic beads. Before 1986, the only treatment available was amputation.