Erlanger Health System (Chattanooga, Tennessee)

Infobox Hospital
Name = Erlanger Hospital
Org/Group = Erlanger Health System


Caption = Erlanger Baroness Campus

Location = Chattanooga
Region =
State = Tennessee
Country = US
Coordinates =
HealthCare = Public
Type = Teaching
Speciality =
Standards =
Emergency = I
Affiliation = University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Beds = 818
Founded = 1889
Closed =
Website = http://www.erlanger.org
Wiki-Links = |The Erlanger Health System (often referred to as Erlanger Hospital or simply Erlanger), is a Tennessee-based hospital system comprised of 5 hospitals on campuses in and around the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee—Erlanger Baroness Campus, T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital at Erlanger Campus, Erlanger East Campus, Erlanger North Campus, and Erlanger Bledsoe Campus. Erlanger is a Level I trauma center for adults with trauma surgeons are available at all times. The T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital at Erlanger houses a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, with a Pediatric Trauma Team, Emergency Department, and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. The system also runs two health centers: Southside Community Health Center and Dodson Avenue Community Health Center.Erlanger Hospital is an 818-bed facility that provides patients with a complete range of primary and specialty care services. It is the Southeast Tennessee region's major tertiary care center and a modern medical complex. In fiscal year 2006-2007, Erlanger had 29,047 inpatient admissions, 265,323 outpatient visits, and treated over 26,571 surgical patients.

Academic Medical Center

Erlanger Hospital also serves as the primary teaching hospital for the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga Unit.

History

Erlanger was founded through the generosity of a French nobleman in 1889. Baron Frederic Emile d'Erlanger, who held financial interests in a number of railroads in this region, donated $5,000 for a new hospital. In today's dollars, this donation would equal more than $4 million.

Appreciative citizens named the hospital for the Baron's wife, Baroness Marguerite Mathilde Slidell. The cornerstone for the Baroness Erlanger Hospital was laid in 1891. In 1899 the $50,000 hospital opened with 72 beds.

Soon after its opening, Erlanger formed one of the state's first nursing schools and developed a partnership with Chattanooga Medical College, now the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Erlanger greeted the 20th century as an academic teaching facility, a distinction the hospital maintains today. Nurses and nursing technicians are trained at Erlanger in conjunction with the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Chattanooga State, and other regional colleges. Doctors are trained through an affiliation with the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga.

By 1940, the hospital had doubled in size and opened the area's first center for cancer treatment, the Erlanger Cancer Center. The region's first open-heart surgery was performed at Erlanger in 1960, and the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of heart disease became and continues as a core service.

Erlanger has always led the region in maternity care and now offers two delivery locations. Erlanger East Campus on Gunbarrel Road is designed for low-risk patients, and the Erlanger Baroness Campus downtown offers comprehensive care, including the region's only tertiary Level III care center for high-risk obstetrics.

The area's first kidney transplant was performed at Erlanger in the 1980's, and the service is still available only through the Erlanger Kidney Center. The 1980's also brought facial reconstructive expertise to Erlanger, resulting in the Tennessee Craniofacial Center, an international leader in this field. Other distinctions include a wide array of intensive care units, the region’s only emergency stroke center (the Southeast Regional Stroke Center), the Miller Eye Center, and the Erlanger Medical Mall.

T. C. Thompson Children's Hospital, founded as separate facility in 1929, became part of Erlanger and moved to the Baroness Campus in 1975. A Comprehensive Regional Pediatric Center, the highest designation in the state, Children's Hospital has physicians in virtually every pediatric subspecialty. The Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit provides the region's highest level of care for premature and sick infants.

With the region's only Level I Trauma Center and the region's only air ambulance, LIFE FORCE, Erlanger can deliver life-saving treatment as quickly as possible. The hospital serves patients from 50 counties within a 150-mile radius.

The downtown Erlanger campus was re-dedicated in 2002 as the Baroness Campus, with a nod to the institution's long history.

References