| University of Virginia Health System | |
| Region: | Charlottesville |
| State: | Virginia |
| Country: | US |
| Healthcare: | Public |
| Type: | Teaching |
| Affiliation: | University of Virginia School of Medicine |
| Emergency: | I |
| Helipad: | ground and rooftop |
| Beds: | 645 |
| Founded: | 1901 |
The University of Virginia (UVA) Health System is an academic health care center associated with the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The health system includes a medical center (with main hospital, children's hospital, and clinic network), school of medicine, school of nursing, and health sciences library. The health system provides inpatient and outpatient care and patient education and conducts medical research and education.
Based in Charlottesville, the Health System also operates satellite locations throughout Virginia, in Albemarle, Amherst, Augusta, Campbell, Fluvanna, Louisa, Nelson, and Orange counties.
The first medical degrees granted by UVA were awarded in 1828. The University of Virginia Hospital, designed by architect Paul J. Pelz, opened in 1901.[1]
In 1995, the maternity ward of the University Medical Center mixed up two newborn babies and sent them home with wrong parents. This was not discovered until summer of 1998 and the children ended up being raised with the unintended families. This incident has garnered international media attention for years.
The UVA Health System's patient care,[2] research and medical education[3] are frequently ranked highly by several ranking systems.[4] In 2016 and 2017, U.S. News & World Report ranked UVAHS as the number one hospital in Virginia.[5]
The UVA Health System's history can be traced to the founding of the University of Virginia in 1819. At the first meeting of the university's Board of Visitors in 1819, a School of Medicine was authorized. The University of Virginia School of Medicine – the 10th medical school in the U.S. – officially opened in March 1825 with a single professor, Dr. Robley Dunglison, recruited by Thomas Jefferson to UVA from London.[6]
More than 75 years later, UVA opened its first hospital in March 1901 with 25 beds and three operating rooms. A few months later, the hospital established a training program for nurses, which would grow into the UVA School of Nursing, formally established in 1956.
Until 1960, the UVA Hospital served its African American patients in segregated wards located in the hospital's basement level.[7] Local African American activists, including hospital employees such as Randolph Lewis White, worked with the NAACP to advocate both for desegregated wards and better labor conditions for the hospital's African American staff members.[8] White and others lobbied state and local officials, and eventually threatened a hospital worker's strike, and then a lawsuit, eventually succeeding in having black patients fully integrated into the previously all-white wards.[9]
The 8,000 books purchased by Jefferson to create the University Library included 710 books on the medical sciences. UVA's medical literature moved to the Medical School building in 1929. Its current home was dedicated in April 1976. The UVA Health Services Foundation was founded in 1979 to handle billing as well as provide benefits and administrative support to UVA physicians. It was renamed University Physicians Group in 2011.
In 2012, Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Pharmacy opened a satellite location at the University of Virginia Medical Center.[10]
In August 2013, with a change in the leadership structure, Dr. Richard Patrick Shannon joined the University of Virginia as the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs.[11] He oversaw the entire Health System at UVA and reported directly to the UVA president. Dr. Shannon formally announced his resignation to the employees of the hospital on March 4, 2019. [12]
The University of Virginia Health System consists of five components:
The Medical Center consists of several buildings. The largest of these building include the main hospital, the West Complex, and the Battle Building.
The main hospital was completed in 1989 at a cost of more than $230 million. Originally designed to be 6 floors, it now stands at 8 floors tall.[15] The building was expanded in 2004, 2012, and 2019.[16] The West Complex was built as a series of separate buildings from 1901 to 1960, with major construction occurring in the 1930s and 1960s. These buildings have since been connected through a series of additions, although the names of the separate buildings are often used.[17] The Battle Building, named for Barry and Bill Battle, was dedicated in 2014 and houses pediatric patient care and outpatient surgery. At over 200,000 sq ft and 7 floors, there are 12 operating rooms in this building and a clinical trials wing.[18] The Battle Building has a LEED Gold rating. The Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center opened in 2011 across from the main hospital.
Medical and nursing students are educated in the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building, built in 2008, and the Claude Moore Medical Education Building, opened in 2010. Several research buildings are on the grounds of the Medical Center where basic, clinical, and translational research is done including Pinn Hall, MR-4, MR-5, MR-6, and the West Complex. Fontaine Research Park is located off-site.
Other major locations are the Jefferson Park Medical Office, Northridge Medical Park, Fontaine Research Park, UVA Family Medicine and Specialty Care of Crozet, Zion Crossroads Medical Park and the Transitional Care Hospital.[19]
See main article: UVA Children's Hospital. UVA Children's Hospital is a nationally ranked, acute care children's hospital in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is affiliated with the University of Virginia School of Medicine.[20] The hospital features all private rooms that consist of 106 pediatric beds.[21] The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout the region.[22] [23] [24] The hospital also sometimes treats adults that require pediatric care.[25] The hospital has a rooftop helipad to transport critical pediatric cases. The hospital features a regional pediatric intensive-care unit and an American Academy of Pediatrics verified level IV neonatal intensive care unit.[26]
In January 2016, University of Virginia Health System and North Carolina-based Novant Health formed a joint operating company to merge several facilities in Northern Virginia.[27] Novant Health UVA Health System comprises UVA Health System Culpeper Hospital, Novant Health Haymarket Medical Center and Novant Health Prince William Medical Center, as well as additional facilities from Novant Health including assisted living, outpatient cancer care, and ambulatory physician clinics. On 1 July 2021, University of Virginia Health System completed the purchase of Novant Health UVA Health System and its hospitals in Culpeper, Manassas and Haymarket. [28]
On June 30, 1995, the University Medical Center accidentally interchanged two newborns in its maternity ward causing them to be sent home with wrong parents. This was not discovered until the summer of 1998 when DNA paternity test was ordered when one of the child's parents were going through a divorce. Custody battles ensued and the children ended up being raised not with their biological family, but with the incorrect family they were handed to by the hospital.[29] [30] [31] [32] [33] The University and one of the families agreed to settle in April 2001 with the university paying $2.3 million to the family.[34]
Several UVA Medical Center departments are ranked among the top 50 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.[35] These are the departments that made the magazine's 2017 rankings:
UVA's School of Medicine and School of Nursing have also been highly ranked by U.S. News & World Report. In the 2017 rankings, the School of Medicine was ranked 27th among medical schools for research[36] and 24th among medical schools for primary care.[37]
The School of Nursing's master's degree program was ranked 19th in 2007 by U.S. News & World Report, while the magazine ranked two of the school's specialty programs in the top 10.[38] The School of Nursing's Clinical Health Specialist program in psychiatric/mental health ranked 5th, while its Clinical Health Specialist program in adult/medical-surgical ranked 6th.
In 2016, Becker's Hospital Review ranked UVA 30 in the nation for Orthopedic Surgery.[39]
On March 30, 2009, the UVA medical center was named as one of the top 100 hospitals in America for 2008 by the Thomson Reuters.[40] The index is based upon clinical excellence, operating efficiency and financial health, and patient satisfaction using criteria such as risk-adjusted mortality index, risk-adjusted complications index and risk-adjusted patient safety index.[41]
Dr. Thomas A.E. Platts-Mills, FRS is the head of the Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. In 2010, Dr. Platts-Mills was elected as a Fellow of The Royal Society,[42] the first allergist to be named to this select group.[43]