About Harlem Hospital Center

Harlem Hospital Center Serves Harlem and NYC residents and has been consistently recognized for its clinical excellence by a number of organizations, with designations including:

  • Level I Trauma Center
  • Designated Stroke Center
  • Bariatric Center of Excellence
  • Breast Imaging Center of Excellence
  • Sexual Assault Forensic Center of Excellence
  • AIDS Designated Center, National Association of Public Hospitals Safety Net Hospital
  • Level III Designated National Committee for Quality Assurance Patient Centered Medical Home
  • Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
  • Area Wide Burn Center
  • World Health Organization’s UNICEF Designated Baby Friendly Hospital

The Hospital is also designated as a Heart Care Station by the American Heart Association and participates in the 911 Receiving Hospitals Advisory Committee.

Harlem Hospital provides a comprehensive array of services. Outpatient preventive, primary care, and specialty services are provided in the Ronald H. Brown Ambulatory Care Pavilion. The Hospital also provides primary care through the Renaissance Health Care Network’s seven health centers and eight school-based health clinics strategically located throughout Harlem and Washington Heights/Inwood. 

All Hospital Services

  • Ambulatory Care Services
  • Cardiology
  • Community Outreach
  • Dental and Oral Surgery
  • Ear-Nose-Throat
  • Emergency Medicine
  • Geriatric Medicine
  • Endocrinology
  • Gastroenterology
  • General Medicine
  • Hemodialysis
  • Infectious Diseases
  • Laboratory Services
  • Neurology
  • Obesity prevention and reduction initiatives
  • Obstetrics/Gynecology
  • Oncology
  • Ophthalmology
  • Pulmonary Medicine
  • Pathology
  • Pediatrics
  • Pharmacy
  • Podiatry
  • Psychiatry and Substance Abuse Programs
  • Radiology imaging including Nuclear medicine
  • Rehabilitation Medicine including Speech and Occupational Therapies
  • Renal
  • Respiratory Therapy
  • Neonatology
  • Rheumatology
  • Social Work
  • Surgery (Ambulatory Surgery, Bariatrics, Orthopedics, Plastics, Urology, and Vascular)

Affiliations

Harlem Hospital Center is one of the hospitals of the Health and Hospitals Corporation of the City of New York. It has been affiliated with Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons since 1962. The integration of an active community hospital with one of the outstanding medical schools in this country has resulted in high quality medical care for the community as well as an unparalleled learning experience which has been mutually beneficial for both with the exchange of faculty, fellows, residents and medical students.

Additional Hospital Programs

Harlem Hospital has other unique programs that are designed as models of care for inner city poor communities:

The Cancer Control Center of Harlem

Harlem Hospital, a venerable member of the community, provides all general and specialty medical and surgical quality health care to economically disadvantaged people. In addition to offering much needed medical care, it has been — and continues to be — a vital social, political and economic force within the community.  Harlem Hospital is one of the largest training grounds for minority and female physicians in the United States. The Cancer Program at Harlem Hospital is an integral part of patient care. The program provides high quality, technologically advanced diagnostic and treatment modalities. The cancer program is accredited by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. The program through the Cancer Committee coordinates the Cancer Registry activities and a multitude of cancer services, including the Cancer Control Center of Harlem (CCCH) which assists the primary physician in significantly decreasing the number of patients lost to follow-up. The CCCH services include early detection and screening promotion programs, diagnostic and treatment of cancer, patient navigation program, early rehabilitation and various clinical research protocols. The CCCH has been pivotal with regards to identifying and tracking patients with malignancies. Complementing the activities of the CCCH are Upper Manhattan Physicians Against Cancer Project and the Women’s Health Partnership/Colorectal Screening and Prostate Cancer Education Initiative. Harlem Hospital is proud to be one of the hospitals contributing leadership toward the development of New York’s first state cancer control plan. Our patients, under difficult circumstances, receive excellent cancer care, which includes early diagnostic facilities and detection for cancer of the breast, cervix, prostate, and colon. Additionally, they receive proper surgical care after initial assessment, adjuvant radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and other supportive care. An effort is made to bring all patients for follow-up care.

Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center

One of America's oldest programs provides diagnosis, prenatal diagnosis, counseling and genetic counseling.

Asthma Prevention Project

Our Asthma Center is one of only six such clinical research centers in the country. While 4% of the national population suffers from asthma, in Harlem that figure approaches 20%. In 1991, the Harlem Asthma Research Team, a group of doctors and scientists from the Harlem Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, began to seek the causes and solutions for this health problem. The Asthma Prevention Project, part of that program, involves a series of clinical studies designed to identify risk factors; to examine frequent Emergency Department asthma care; and to determine the roles of stress, emotions and cultural health practices on asthma morbidity.

Level I Trauma Center/Emergency Services

Harlem Hospital's newly renovated Level I Trauma Center, designated by the American Heart Association as a facility equipped to handle heart emergencies and cardiac arrest, treats patients with severe traumas and other major health crises. Additionally, the Burn Unit within the hospital is certified by New York State EmergencyMedical Services Burn Center. The hospital's Urgent Care Center is a unit within the Emergency Department that treats people with non-life-threatening medical problems. This unit also refers patients to their primary care provider for follow-up treatment.

National Model TB Center

This model center was established with a national grant to expand Harlem's ability to treat and provide services to tuberculosis patients. The center uses a coordinated, interdisciplinary approach for treating patients, in order to maximize compliance and improve outcomes. The award-winning model Tuberculosis Clinic, one of only three in the nation, has reduced active tuberculosis cases in Harlem by 75% between 1992 and the present.

Pediatric Injury Prevention Program

This program exemplifies the American Hospital Association's vision of a restructured delivery system through collaborative initiatives. Dedicated to reducing childhood injury by providing safe play areas, the program provides both supervised activities and injury prevention education to children and parents. To date, the program has orchestrated the building of 35 school playgrounds, and plans are underway for more. Through its Bike Smart effort, all third-grade students in the district are taught street and bike safety. Since the program's launch, there has been a 48% decrease in major injury hospital visits by Harlem children.

Program for AIDS Initiatives

The AIDS initiative program provides screening for all HIV patients and for those at highest risk for the disease. It also coordinates treatment; offers psychological and social services; and provides inpatient, emergency, post-discharge and alternate care, such as hospice or long-term home health care.