If you ever find yourself roaming around Cleveland Clinic’s E. 93rd street parking garage, take a look at the license plates. You’ll see plenty of representation from the Buckeye State, and the lower 48 make a strong showing, too, but as far as parking garages go, this one is remarkably cosmopolitan.
If you strike up a conversation with some of the drivers of those vehicles, you’ll see borders melt away and discover that the whole world comes to Cleveland for health care, from world and business leaders to celebrities. The Terminator didn’t have to go back in time to undergo heart surgery; Arnold Schwarzenegger just had to take a short flight from LAX to Cleveland Hopkins.
The Cleveland Clinic is the name most people recognize from its consistently lofty perch atop the “U.S News & World Report” hospital rankings. But that just scratches the surface of Cleveland’s robust, excellent healthcare offerings.
Each hospital in the city has its own humble origin story. Among Cleveland’s hospital triumvirate, MetroHealth hospital system, founded in 1837, is the oldest and originally served Cleveland’s poor. For nearly 175 years, MetroHealth has been a public health care titan, recognized nationally for its renowned burn center and rehabilitation care. MetroHealth’s international reputation for its Metro Life Flight air ambulance service, which has completed more than 90,000 medical missions, puts it in rarefied air.
University Hospitals (UH), also ranked as one of the nation’s best hospitals by “U.S. News & World Report,” started a year after the end of the Civil War as an institution also offering medical care to the city’s poor. After a series of synergistic mergers of several hospitals throughout the twentieth century, UH cemented itself as one of Cleveland’s anchor institutions. Today, through its close affiliation with Case Western Reserve University, it draws flocks of medical students from all over the globe and has become one of the nation’s preeminent teaching hospitals.
Initially finding its footing as a group practice following the end of World War I, Cleveland Clinic is considered the nation’s second-ranked hospital by our friends at “U.S News & World Report,” and is the city’s largest employer. Known for many firsts, including performing the first coronary artery bypass surgery and first face transplant, the Clinic has outposts all the way from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi.
Transplants Welcome
Clevelanders sometimes joke that if you have to get sick, Cleveland’s the place to do it. Well, if you need a job, Cleveland’s the place to find one. With 75,000-plus jobs concentrated in these three major hospital systems, you can’t help bumping into someone in Cleveland who works in the healthcare industry.
Twenty thousand more jobs are promised to roll into Cleveland over the next ten years through the newly announced Cleveland Innovation District. Bringing Cleveland’s healthcare trifecta together with the city’s educational institutions and other business partners, the Innovation District’s goal is to create a pathogen center that ultimately will improve the lives of millions of people globally, while continuing to elevate Cleveland’s status as a worldwide hotspot for health care and IT.
The Innovation District is yet another chapter in the continuous cycle of the infusion of investment into the Cleveland healthcare space, as well as the creation of multiple spin-offs of healthcare-related companies in IT, medical devices and biotechnology (drugs and diagnostics).
Clearly, the heartbeat of Cleveland’s healthcare sector is strong, its fingers on the pulse of leading-edge innovation and investment. With growth in the sector expected to continue and its reputation crossing borders every day, the prognosis of Cleveland healthcare is excellent.