What distinguishes Montefiore Medical Center from other academic medical centers in the 21st Century is the dynamic way Montefiore integrates medical and health care excellence, social responsibility, groundbreaking research and inspirational teaching.
The desire and commitment to stay in the national forefront of these disciplines has propelled Montefiore to initiate new models of managed care, invest heavily in clinical and administrative technology, hire world-renowned leaders in medicine and surgery, implement and advance the practice of "evidence-based" medicine and to adopt an array of innovative measures to improve the health and well being of individuals and entire populations.
Through these efforts, Montefiore has truly become a full-service, integrated delivery system for New York City, Westchester County and beyond. Programs exist to provide health education and primary care through a vast network of community centers. Advanced surgical and medical programs include cardiology and cardiac surgery, cancer care, tissue and organ transplantation, children's health, women's health, surgery and the surgical subspecialties.
Long-term care is provided thorough the nation's oldest hospital-based home care program. Patients can move seamlessly from one part of the system to another. What most patients do not know, however, is how this happens -- how the complex system works together.
Montefiore is The University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. It is the principal seat of the faculty of the Albert Einstein clinical departments and the primary clinical base for the school's programs of medical education.
Montefiore provides 30 percent of the clinical clerkships for Einstein medical students and trains 800 residents and fellows in an extraordinary range of specialties. Its biomedical research programs attract more than $25 million annually in extramural support.
The Montefiore Health System serves the 1.4 million residents of the Bronx, neighbors in nearby Westchester County and persons referred from across the nation and around the world. Accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, it offers preventive, primary, specialty, acute and long-term care.
At the center of the Montefiore system are three hospitals: the 726-bed Henry and Lucy Moses Division; the 396-bed Jack D. Weiler Hospital of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; and The Children's Hospital at Montefiore (located at the Moses Division), a spectacular center of pediatric care, which anchors an extensive network of community-based children's services.
Together, Montefiore's hospitals provide more than 70,000 inpatient stays annually including more than 4,000 births. More than 2 million outpatients are seen annually in the medical center's emergency rooms, hospital-based outpatient department and primary and specialty care sites in the Bronx and Westchester County.
In addition, Montefiore operates one of the largest hospital-based home health agencies in the nation, which makes more than 400,000 annual visits. Rehabilitation care is provided at the newly renovated 22-bed Lubin Rehabilitation Center at the Weiler Division. A Palliative Care Service meets the special needs of patients with advanced and often incurable illnesses.
To support its extensive care system, Montefiore has developed one of the world's most highly advanced clinical and management information systems. The centerpiece is a computerized clinical information system (CIS), which makes possible continuous, lifelong medical records. Physicians literally cannot practice medicine at Montefiore without using this system.
The CIS has: 100% computerized physician order entry, which allows physicians to order medications and tests directly by computer; allergy and drug interaction checks (resulting in an 80% reduction in medication errors); an on-line integrated pharmacy system; on-line laboratory, radiology and nuclear medicine results and a wireless network for point-of-care computing, such as at a patient's bedside. Electronic patient medical records are available from anywhere and at anytime within the hospitals.
To facilitate clinical data exchange among Bronx healthcare providers, Montefiore Medical Center has taken the lead on creating a Regional Health Information Organization (RHIO). The Bronx RHIO will allow health care providers at member hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and private physicians' practices throughout the borough to share the health records of participating Bronx residents in order to provide the highest quality and safest care.
Montefiore is a leader in developing the systems necessary to manage care responsibly. Its Integrated Provider Association (IPA) now has 1,650 member physicians, including 400 primary care physicians. With the support of the Montefiore Contract Management Organization, the IPA is able to accept full financial risk and now has complete responsibility for the care of 150,000 covered lives. These patients benefit from the use of innovative disease management programs, including the use of technology to monitor patients in their homes for symptoms of worsening congestive heart failure, which improve quality and access while managing utilization and costs.
Service to the community at large, not only to patients who use the medical center's facilities, is a longstanding Montefiore tradition and an explicit component of its mission.
In 1996, the Association of American Medical Colleges chose Montefiore to receive one of its highest honors, the Outstanding Community Service Award. The medical center's community commitment has continued with a major expansion of basic health services in underserved neighborhoods and the development of national models for combating AIDS, lead poisoning, child abuse and other challenges. Montefiore was the first medical center in the nation to create a Division of Bioethics to address ethical dilemmas that arise in the clinical setting; more recently, it became the first to develop an organizational Code of Ethics, an explicit statement of the medical center's ethical obligations to its patients, the community and society as a whole.
During the past two decades, Montefiore has greatly expanded its ambulatory care facilities. High quality medical care is available in virtually every neighborhood of the Bronx and in nearby Westchester through the Montefiore Medical Group, an extensive network of physician offices and community health centers.
In 2008, children will be served by 15 Montefiore school health programs and in a system of mobile pediatric centers operated by the medical center through its affiliate, the New York Children's Health Project. On its Bronx campuses, Montefiore offers primary and specialty care services at a beautiful Family Care Center and at two faculty practice centers - the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Medical Arts Pavilion on the West Campus and the Montefiore Medical Park on the East Campus.
© 2008 Montefiore Medical Center