Yale-New Haven Hospital

Yale-New Haven Hospital (abbreviated YNHH) is a world-renowned 944-bed hospital located in downtown New Haven, Connecticut.

The hospital is owned and operated by the Yale New Haven Health System, Inc. Yale-New Haven Hospital includes the 201-bed Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and the 76-bed Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. Yale-New Haven is the primary teaching hospital for Yale University School of Medicine.

Yale-New Haven Hospital regularly ranks among the best hospitals in the U.S. and is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO).

In 2007, YNHH was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as the 15th-best hospital out of 5,462 medical centers in the United States. Yale-New Haven Hospital was ranked among the very best in 10 of the 16 medical specialties evaluated, including cancer; digestive disorders; ear nose and throat; endocrinology; gynecology; heart and heart surgery; kidney disease; psychiatry; respiratory disorders; and urology. Yale-New Haven Hospital's geriatrics and psychiatry departments are ranked among the nation's top 10, while gynecology, digestive disorders, endocrinology, kidney disorders, respiratory disorders, and oncology are ranked among the nation's top 25.

The hospital provides services to more than 503,000 outpatients and emergency visits and 50,000 inpatient discharges per year. Yale-New Haven Hospital is the second largest employer in New Haven, Connecticut with about 6,000 employees and has a physician base of over 2,200 university-based and community physicians practicing more than 100 medical specialties.

History
The history of Yale-New Haven Hospital extends back to 1826 when the General Hospital Society of Connecticut was chartered as the first hospital in Connecticut and the fourth voluntary hospital in the nation.

The hospital rented temporary quarters and raised US$5,000 toward the purchase of land and construction. A new 13-bed hospital opened in 1833 on seven and a half acres of land bordered by Cedar Street and Howard, Davenport and Congress avenues. The original building, called the State Hospital, was designed by prominent New Haven architect Ithiel Town and cost US$13,000.

In 1862, the State Hospital was converted to a military hospital to care for Union soldiers during the American Civil War. The hospital was renamed to the Knight United State Army General Hospital in honor of Jonathan Knight, the president of the board of trustees. Some attending physicians moved with the civilian patients to temporary quarters on Whitney Avenue.

After the Civil War, the hospital was turned over to the General Society of Connecticut in 1865. The hospital converted back to its original name of State Hospital. The Connecticut Training School, the third training school for nurses in the United States, was opened by the hospital in 1873. In 1884, the hospital's name was changed to New Haven Hospital to reflect the name that was widely being used by the residents of New Haven.

Yale School of Medicine and New Haven Hospital formalized their relationship in 1913. U.S. medical education, which had begun as a simple apprenticeship system, evolved to become a formal educational plan based on alliances between medical schools and hospitals. This was the start of what is now known as the Yale-New Haven Medical Center. 1914 saw the first motorized ambulance being purchased by New Haven Hospital.

In 1945 the hospital changed its name to Grace-New Haven Hospital after it affiliated itself with nearby Grace Hospital. In 1951, the New Haven Dispensary formally merged with Grace-New Haven Hospital. The New Haven Dispensary had opened in 1871 as the city’s first outpatient clinic. In 1965, a more formal agreement with the Yale School of Medicine resulted in another name change to Yale-New Haven Hospital.

1993 saw the opening of the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital becoming the first full-service children's hospital in Connecticut, including the first children's emergency department. The Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital was opened in 2000, after the purchase of the Yale Psychiatric Institute.

Today, YNHH is a 944-bed private, nonprofit facility that ranks among the premier medical centers in the nation. Yale-New Haven is the largest acute care provider in southern Connecticut and one of the Northeast's major referral centers.

Physical Plant
The main patient campus of Yale-New Haven Hospital is comprised of three inpatient pavilions bounded by South Frontage Road, Park Street, Howard Avenue and York Street. The East Pavilion, originally called the Memorial Unit, was opened in 1950 (designed by Douglas Orr). The South Pavilion was opened in 1982 and followed by the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital (West Pavilion) in 1993. All three pavilions are connected by a central atrium. In 2000, Yale-New Haven Hospital acquired the nearby Yale Psychiatric Institute (designed by architect Frank Gehry in 1989) and opened Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. In 2004, the Yale-New Haven Shoreline Medical Center in Guilford, Connecticut was opened. The New Haven Pavilion houses outpatient clinics, clinical laboratories and admininstration, among other departments. Located across the street from the inpatient pavilions, it occupies land that the original hospital was built on in 1833. The New Haven Pavilion connects directly to facilities of Yale School of Medicine. Taking into account nearby outpatient and primary care facilities, along with administrative offices, Yale-New Haven Hospital covers 1.9 million square feet and growing.

New Cancer Center Building
In 2004, Yale-New Haven Hospital proposed building a new 430-million-dollar building for Yale Cancer Center,a Comprehensive Cancer Center. While construction was scheduled to begin in September 2005, the project was delayed by disputes with unions and the city. On March 22, 2006, the unions and the hospital reached an agreement. Construction on the new Yale-New Haven Cancer Hospital started on May 18, 2006 with the demolition of the Grace Building and site preparation. Groundbreaking occurred on Wednesday, September 6, 2006.

This new Cancer Center building will also be known as the North Pavilion and will be connected to the other facilities via the atrium. The building is scheduled to open in 2009.

Milestones in Medicine

 * 1896 - Arthur Wright produces first X-ray in the U.S. at Yale University
 * 1942 - First successful clinical use of penicillin in the U.S. (see Orvan Hess, M.D.)
 * 1942 - First ever use of chemotherapy as a cancer treatment
 * 1946 - First U.S. hospital to allow healthy newborns to stay in rooms with mothers
 * 1947 - The Rheumatic Fever-Cardiac clinic opens, the nation's first regional children's heart center
 * 1949 - First ever artificial heart pump developed (now at the Smithsonian Institution)
 * 1949 - First U.S. hospital to introduce natural childbirth
 * 1952 - First cornea transplant in Connecticut
 * 1954 - First high energy radiation treatment unit in Connecticut
 * 1956 - First open heart surgery in Connecticut
 * 1957 - First ever hospital to use fetal heart monitoring (see Orvan Hess, M.D.)
 * 1957 - First peritoneal dialysis in Connecticut
 * 1958 - First hemodialysis in Connecticut
 * 1958 - First kidney biopsy in Connecticut
 * 1959 - Discovery of melatonin
 * 1960 - First ever intensive care unit for newborns
 * 1963 - First linear accelerator for cancer treatment in Connecticut
 * 1964 - First radiation therapy technology school in the U.S.
 * 1966 - Diaphragmatic pacemaker allows quadriplegics to breathe without a respirator
 * 1967 - First kidney transplant in Connecticut
 * 1972 - First hospital-based comprehensive newborn screening program for sickle cell anemia in the U.S.
 * 1975 - Lyme disease identified and named
 * 1976 - First in Connecticut to treat cancer with photons and eletrons
 * 1978 - Develop first ever insulin infusion pump for diabetics
 * 1982 - First AIDS clinic in Connecticut
 * 1983 - First liver transplant in Connecticut
 * 1983 - First in vitro fertilization birth in New England
 * 1984 - First heart transplant in Connecticut
 * 1984 - First skin bank in New England
 * 1985 - First fetal cardiovascular center in the U.S.
 * 1985 - First hospital-based inpatient child psychiatric unit in Connecticut
 * 1987 - First use of photopheresis in Connecticut
 * 1988 - First bone marrow transplant in Connecticut
 * 1988 - First heart-lung transplant in Connecticut
 * 1988 - First fetal tissue cell transplant into Parkinson's patient
 * 1989 - First pancreas transplant in Connecticut
 * 1990 - First single lung transplant in Connecticut
 * 1991 - First in Connecticut to use Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a sophisticated infant life support system
 * 1992 - First heart transplant from an unmatched donor in Connecticut
 * 1993 - First in Connecticut to use non-invasive stereotactic breast biopsy
 * 1994 - First in Connecticut to use epidural endoscopy to diagnose elusive back pain
 * 1995 - First hospital in Connecticut to have an Internet website
 * 1996 - First in Connecticut to perform Battista heart reduction surgery
 * 1997 - First and only Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit© in Connecticut
 * 1997 - First in Connecticut to use inhaled nitric oxide to treat infants with pulmonary hypertension
 * 1997 - First documented heart transplants of adult identical twins, one in 1992, second in 1997
 * 1998 - First patient in New England discharged with a left ventricular assist device
 * 2000 - First in Connecticut to use GE LightSpeed CT Scanners
 * 2001 - First U.S. hospital to introduce a Women's Heart Advantage program
 * 2002 - First to transplant nerve cell into brain of multiple sclerosis patient
 * 2003 - First in New England to transplant a Jarvik2000 ventricular assist device into a failing heart

External link

 * Official Website
 * New Haven Independent story about labor problems