UW Medicine’s mission is to improve the health of the public by advancing medical knowledge, providing outstanding primary and specialty care to the people of the region, and preparing tomorrow’s physicians, scientists and other health professionals.
UW Medicine owns or operates Harborview Medical Center, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, Valley Medical Center, University of Washington Medical Center, a network of nine UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics that provide primary care, the physician practice UW Physicians, the UW School of Medicine and Airlift Northwest. In addition, UW Medicine shares in the ownership and governance of Children’s University Medical Group and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a partnership among UW Medicine, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s.
Our faculty includes 3 living Nobel Prize winners (5 in our history), 35 Institute of Medicine members, 32 National Academy of Sciences members and 13 Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigators.
Patient Care
Our core hospitals, Harborview, UW Medical Center and Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, together have about 69,000 admissions and about 1.4 million outpatient and emergency room visits to the hospitals and clinics each year. As an academic medical center, UW Medicine provides our patients with the latest in medical discovery, diagnoses and treatments. Our physicians treat patients, as well as conduct scientific research and teach the next generation of medical professionals.
Medic One, the international model for emergency care, was developed at Harborview Medical Center. Medic One was developed in a collaborative effort among Harborview, the Seattle Fire Department and the UW School of Medicine. The system, one of the first of its kind in the world, is the model most emulated by communities throughout the country.
Airlift Northwest, an air medical transport program, was founded by a consortium of hospitals in the Seattle area, including Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center and Seattle Children’s. Airlift Northwest has provided air medical transport for more than 80,000 patients since 1982.
People
- More than 21,000 employees contribute to the mission of UW Medicine.
- The School of Medicine has approximately 2,000 employed faculty members and more than 4,600 clinical faculty across the WWAMI program who teach medical students, residents and post-doctoral fellows.
- UW Medicine has approximately 4,500 students and trainees across a broad range of undergraduate, professional, and post-graduate programs.
Education
The five-state WWAMI regional medical educational network, serving Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, is widely considered the best academic model for the training and placing of physicians in underserved communities.
U.S. News & World Report has consistently identified the UW School of Medicine among the nation's top providers of primary-care training since the publication first ranked graduate schools in 1994. In 2013, UW programs were ranked among the nation's best in these areas:
- Primary care
- Family medicine
- Internal medicine
- Pediatrics
- Geriatrics
- Rural medicine
- AIDS
- Drug and alcohol abuse
Research
UW faculty members have been responsible for many basic science and technological advances in medicine. Our faculty have been pioneers in numerous areas, including transgenic animal technology, cell replication and signal transduction research, as well as the development of medical ultrasound, renal dialysis and technology critical to protein science.
UW Medicine researchers are international leaders in genome sciences.
When the National Institutes of Health created the first three National Centers of Excellence in Genomic Sciences, the UW received two of the three awards – one in the School of Medicine and one in the College of Engineering.
The Gairdner Foundation has recognized 10 UW School of Medicine faculty for their seminal contributions to scientific advances worldwide.
UW School of Medicine faculty members are leaders in proteomics – research related to the biomolecular structure of proteins. Understanding protein complexes may lead to treatment and prevention of devastating diseases. UW scientists are studying dystrophin, a protein necessary for muscle health, in the search for muscular dystrophy treatments. Other scientists are studying the structural genomics of protozoa that are pathogens for such diseases as sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and malaria, which result in many deaths worldwide.
UW biomedical research programs have been ranked consistently among the top three schools in receipt of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding in U.S. News & World Report surveys.
The 2013 rankings:
- Harvard
- University of Washington
- Johns Hopkins
UW School of Medicine research provides a significant economic benefit to the community. UW Medicine generated more than $673 million in research funds last year. A number of established and start-up biotechnology companies, including Zymogenetics and ICOS, have their roots in UW School of Medicine research.
Report to the Community
The
Report to the Community reflects a small portion of our work locally, regionally and worldwide to help transform healthcare. This work is conducted in laboratories, patient-care settings, and classrooms by training the next generation of healthcare professionals and scientists, and through public advocacy. The report provides an overview of events that have shaped us; how we are hardwiring a culture of excellence; how we are transforming care through public advocacy, key programs, training, research, global engagement and other initiatives; and the results of those efforts.