ABOUT the HOST—

About University Hospital & Upstate Medical University

SUNY Upstate Medical University and its 372-bed hospital, University Hospital, is the region’s only academic medical center.  With 5200 employees, Upstate is also the county’s largest employer.  Because it is a tertiary-care referral hospital and the only Level I trauma center in central New York, the hospital coverage area of 17 counties is the broadest of the region’s hospitals.

Our Educational Mission

University Hospital is the primary teaching facility for Upstate’s four colleges:

• Medicine
• Nursing
• Health Professions
• Graduate Studies

Each year, approximately 415 medical residents, 600 medical students, 300 health professionals, and over 150 advanced nursing students receive training at the hospital and its satellites, contributing in many ways to the improved delivery of health care to the region’s 1.5 million residents.

University Hospital

The hospital features a full range of academic and clinical programs from neuroscience, cardiovascular, oncology and pediatrics to psychiatry, physical medicine, orthopedics and geriatrics.  University Hospital does not have a maternity center. 

The hospital has more than 16,000 patient admissions, 300,000 outpatient visits, and 45,000 emergency room visits.  Approximately 25,000 new patients enter the system annually.

Outpatient (Ambulatory) Care

The majority of outpatient visits occur at the five-story University Health Care Center in downtown Syracuse.  The hospital operates approximately 80 clinics treating a wide spectrum of diseases and abnormalities.

State-of-the-Art Care

The tertiary-care role of University Hospital is reflected in its highly sub-specialized services and state-of-the-art medical equipment.  For example, University Hospital treats the region’s most critically ill cardiac patients through its open-heart surgery program.  Essential to this program are minimally invasive procedures for valve repair/replacement, cardiac bypass and off-pump surgeries as well as the use of robotic assistance (da Vinci Robot®) in cardiac and prostate surgeries.  University Hospital is also the regional kidney-transplant center with unique expertise in laparoscopic procedures, and features a bone-marrow transplant unit and the gastric-bypass surgery program.  It is the only state designated stroke center in central New York.

University Hospital's extensive adult and pediatric oncology services are highly-regarded and long-established centers for the specialized long-term treatment and surgical care of cancer patients. Another example of specialized care is the epilepsy center, which provides comprehensive medical and surgical treatment of patients for whom standard approaches have been exhausted. University Hospital is also the site of one of the country's most highly regarded orthopedic programs as well as the region’s most comprehensive physical medicine and rehabilitation center which provides a Phase II cardiac rehab program.  University Hospital also offers comprehensive geriatric care and diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.