Harris County Hospital District

The Harris County Hospital District is a governmental entity with taxing authority that owns and operates three hospitals and numerous clinics throughout Harris County, Texas, including the city of Houston.

History
The Harris County Hospital District was created by voter referendum in November 1965 and formally came into being as a political subdivision with taxing authority on January 1, 1966. Its creation is largely attributed to the publication of Jan de Hartog's novel The Hospital, which described the horrific conditions of the Jeff Davis Charity Hospital. The new district replaced an existing city-county system in which the two governmental bodies shared funding responsibility.

A Hospital District is a governmental entity in Texas, established pursuant to the Texas Constitution or the general statutes of Texas, and its purpose is to provide medical care to the needy residents of a particular county.

Hospitals
Its two main hospitals serve approximately a million under-insured and uninsured people, nearly a quarter of the entire population of Harris County, the third most-populous county in the country. Harris County includes Houston, the fourth largest city in the United States. Ben Taub General Hospital is a level I trauma center with 650 licensed beds. It is located in the Texas Medical Center, the largest medical complex in the world, and is staffed by faculty, residents, and students of Baylor College of Medicine.

Lyndon Baines Johnson General Hospital is a 332 bed general hospital with a level 3 trauma center located northeast of Downtown Houston. It is staffed by the faculty, residents, and students of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Quentin Mease Community Hospital has 25 beds for long-term physical rehabilitation and 24 beds in its geriatric services program. It is staffed by the faculty, residents, and students of Baylor College of Medicine.

Clinics
Harris County Hospital District operates 12 Community Health Centers, a dental center, eight School-Based Clinics, 13 homeless shelter clinics and four mobile health clinics. These clinics offer primary care as well as a variety of specialty care such as psychiatry, dentistry, obstetrical/gynecological, podiatry, ophthalmology, pharmacy, psychiatry and counseling, laboratory and x-ray services, HIV/AIDS case management, and a variety of nutrition, health education and social services. Thomas Street Health Center was the first freestanding HIV/AIDS clinic in the United States, and today treats nearly a third of all HIV/AIDS patients in Harris County.

The clinics are staffed by UTHSC-Houston and BCM physicians, as well as countless nurses, clerks, and allied health professionals.