History of the North Shore-LIJ Health System
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System (North Shore-LIJ) was formed in 1997 with the merger of North Shore Health System and Long Island Jewish Medical Center. It is the nation’s second-largest, nonprofit, secular healthcare system. In the New York metropolitan region, North Shore-LIJ is the largest provider of healthcare services, with 16 hospitals, 2 long-term care facilities, a major research center (The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research), the area’s major home-care, hospice and ambulance providers, and a network of approximately 250 ambulatory sites. The Health System’s five major tertiary teaching hospitals include Lenox Hill Hospital (LHH) in Manhattan (652 beds), North Shore University Hospital (NSUH) in Manhasset (804 beds), Staten Island University Hospital’s (SIUH) North Campus (714 beds), Southside Hospital in Bay Shore (341 beds), and Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center in Queens (983 beds), whose campus is also home to two of the three free-standing specialty hospitals: the Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York (164 beds) and Zucker Hillside Hospital (236 beds), a psychiatric hospital. The third and newest specialty hospital, South Oaks (215), is a comprehensive, full service psychiatric facility serving the south shore of Long Island. The Health System’s variety of programs and services facilitate the coordination and management of patient care across the continuum.
The hospitals and other healthcare providers in the Health System annually care for more than 283,500 inpatients, provide over 133,400 ambulatory surgery procedures, deliver 25,600 babies, accommodate approximately 640,000 emergency department visits, provide over one million ambulatory care visits, and have 4 million patient contacts, including over 503,700 home health visits. Given the location of the Health System facilities, its patient base comes from a broad geographic region, which encompasses urban to suburban landscapes and represents a full spectrum of racial, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity. The Health System’s diagnostic, therapeutic, and prevention services generate annual revenue of $6.3 billion.
The Health System has more than 2,400 full-time physicians and approximately 7,210 community physicians that comprise its medical staff, employs more than 10,000 nurses, and has a total workforce of more than 43,000. It is the largest employer on Long Island and the third-largest private employer in the City of New York.
The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, a free-standing research institute established in 1999, is home to just under 160 scientists and investigators, who also serve as faculty in the School’s Department of Molecular Medicine. Feinstein receives more NIH funding than 50 of the 137 US medical schools, and ranks in the top 5th percentile of all research institutions that receive NIH support. With 45 laboratories organized into ten Centers of Excellence, Feinstein is home to leaders in translational and clinical research who consistently receive national and international peer recognition for their scholarship and mentorship, as manifested through honors, awards, and publications in the leading high impact biomedical journals. Feinstein is also chartered to confer doctoral (PhD) degrees to MDs through its Elmezzi Graduate School of Molecular Medicine.
The Health System directly sponsors approximately 115 accredited graduate medical education (GME) programs and trains more than 1,500 medical residents and fellows annually. However, North Shore-LIJ Health System’s commitment to teaching and learning extends beyond its graduate medical education programs. The Health System’s Continuing Medical Education (CME) program encompasses over 120 conferences, regularly scheduled series, and enduring materials, and provides approximately 2,000 hours of certified CME to approximately 6,000 physicians and other health professionals each year. In 2007, the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) awarded North Shore-LIJ Health System with a six-year “Accreditation with Commendation”, the highest award status available to a CME provider. To facilitate integration across the educational continuum, the School’s Dean for Medical Education also serves in the role of Chief Academic Officer of the Health System.
The Health System is also nationally recognized as a leader in developing and investing in the skills and continuing education for its staff and employees. In 2002, North Shore-LIJ launched the Center for Learning and Innovation (CLI), the largest “corporate university” in the healthcare industry. CLI is dedicated to creating a world-class learning organization that provides continuous learning opportunities for staff to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to support the Health System’s strategic patient care and business goals. One innovative CLI program is the Patient Safety Institute (PSI), a medical simulation laboratory that features PC-based, interactive, high fidelity, digitally-enhanced mannequins to help physicians, nurses, medical students, and other healthcare practitioners diagnose and manage clinical problems without risk to real patients. The largest in the Northeast, the simulation center recently moved into a new 45,000 square-foot facility.
