Top 10 Hospitals in Georgia by Acute Inpatient Days

Today I want to take a look at the top 10 hospitals in Georgia based on Acute Inpatient days. The Inpatient days come from the hospital’s latest filed cost report that has been posted on CMS’ website.

Part of my curiosity is to see how days line up with beds.

Here’s the top 10 based on bed in service:

Hospital	City	Beds in Service
GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	646
KENNESTONE HOSPITAL	MARIETTA	642
MEDICAL CENTER OF CENTRAL GEORGIA	MACON	584
EMORY UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	577
UNIVERSITY HEALTH SERVICES	AUGUSTA	560
NORTHEAST GEORGIA MEDICAL CENTER	GAINESVILLE	545
NORTHSIDE HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	536
MEMORIAL HEALTH UNIV MED CENTER	SAVANNAH	517
PIEDMONT HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	508
AU MEDICAL CENTER	AUGUSTA	486

Now, let’s take a look at the top 10 based on Acute Inpatient Days.

Hospital	City	Cost Report Year-End	IP Days
NORTHSIDE HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	09/30/18	212,774
GRADY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	12/31/17	205,357
KENNESTONE HOSPITAL	MARIETTA	06/30/18	201,290
EMORY UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	08/31/18	178,766
NORTHEAST GEORGIA MEDICAL CENTER	GAINESVILLE	09/30/18	178,633
MEDICAL CENTER OF CENTRAL GEORGIA	MACON	09/30/17	169,740
MEMORIAL HEALTH UNIV MED CENTER	SAVANNAH	01/31/18	162,702
PIEDMONT HOSPITAL	ATLANTA	06/30/18	157,904
GWINNETT HOSPITAL SYSTEM	LAWRENCEVILLE	06/30/18	145,568
EMORY UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL MIDTOWN	ATLANTA	08/31/18	140,702

Northside Hospital takes the top spot for this table.

In the last post, I looked at the top 5 hospitals in depth. Some of these hospitals have a fascinating history. I covered Grady Memorial, Kennestone, Medical Center of Central Georgia, Emory and University Hospital.

For this post, I’ll dig around and see what I can find that is interesting for Northside Hospital, Northeast Georgia Medical Center, Memorial Health University Medical Center, Piedmont Hospital, and Gwinnett Hospital. This should be fun.

Northside Hospital Atlanta opened in 1970. They started with 250 beds and now have 621. In total, the Northside Hospital system includes 5 hospitals which are located in Atlanta, Canton, Cumming, Duluth and Lawrenceville.

Coming in at number five for most Acute Inpatient days is Northeast Georgia Medical Center, which is located in Gainesville. They opened their doors in 1951 and have added campuses in Braselton, Barrow, and Dahlonega since that time. They say they are Georgia’s “most awarded hospital.” ¹

Memorial Health University Medical Center is number seven and they are located in Savannah. They opened their doors in 1955. They have the only Level I trauma center in their region and are the region’s only children’s hospital. They are also the Savannah campus for Mercer University School of Medicine. ²

At number eight is Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. They started in 1905 as Piedmont Sanitarium. It was a 10 bed sanitarium in a 15 room home. “It was chartered to provide modern healthcare in a comfortable, home like setting, which its founders deemed critical to the healing process.” ³ Go here to see a picture of Piedmont Hospital circa 1915: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/file/5433

The last hospital we’ll look at is Gwinett Hospital. It comes in 9th place and is located in Lawrenceville. This hospital opened in December of 1984 and is now a part of Northside Hospital. Two movies were filmed at Gwinnett Medical Center facilities: Due Date and Hall Pass.⁴

Musing Revelation

When it comes to Acute Inpatient beds, Northside Hospital beats out Grady Memorial Hospital. They have 110 less beds in service. That is quite interesting.

Also interesting is the idea of creating a home like setting for a hospital. Sanitariums were generally for a chronic diseases, such as tuberculosis. Today, though, everything is so clean and sterile. Hospitals are generally not home like at all.