Medical Excellence for a Changing Community: How Chicago’s Sinai Health System Developed and Adapted

By Maxwell P. Westerman

When it comes to health and medical innovation, Sinai Health System of Chicago is one of the most respected names in the game. From its origin in 1919 as a sixty-bed hospital, to today, where its numerous arms provide a variety of equitable care and community outreach programs, Sinai has been an influential force in research, philanthropy, education, service, and medicine.

In Medical Excellence for a Changing Community, Max Westerman dives into the vibrant background and accomplishments of this powerhouse community hospital. Drawing on extensive research and over 100 interviews, Westerman explores its foundation as a Jewish care center, its evolution into an institution serving its Latino and black neighborhood, and its current achievements and accolades. He also examines its organization, multi-disciplinary divisions, administration, adaptability, and accountability.

This impeccable study is not only a captivating story of one institution's triumph, but a shining example for public health workers everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781544503813

Book preview

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Copyright © 2019 Maxwell P. Westerman

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5445-0381-3

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Contents

Foreword

Dedication

Introduction

Section One: The History of Sinai Health System

Chapter 1: The First Thirty Years

Chapter 2: The Formative Period

Section Two: Progress, Programs, and People

Chapter 3: Sinai Health System in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century

Chapter 4: Community Programs

Chapter 5: Quality Control and Planning

Section Three: Organization

Chapter 6: Hospital Departments and Research Initiatives

Chapter 7: The Role of Philanthropy in the Sinai Health System

Chapter 8: The Board of Directors

Chapter 9: The Administrative Officers

Chapter 10: Awards and Recognition

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Author

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Foreword

Sometimes, the hardest path is the most rewarding. Not in monetary terms necessarily, but in the currency that counts: deep professional and personal satisfaction of doing the right thing for a greater good. Just ask any of the four thousand committed caregivers at Sinai Health System, Chicago’s largest healthcare system, serving the most vulnerable communities of low-income individuals. The patients and clients who Sinai has served for the past century often face the most daunting social and health issues imaginable: violent crime at a rate of 3.5 times that of the city, unemployment rates that are as high as seven times the city’s rate, chronic disease such as diabetes that can be as high as three times the national average, and a depression rate more than twice that of the rest of the United States. Since 1919, Sinai Health System caregivers have been committed to seeing our communities thrive in health, to use the vision statement of Sinai Urban Health Institute (the research division of the system), whether welcoming and treating a refugee family at a first health visit in the United States, caring for a premature baby as small