ECMC

Erie County Medical Center Corporation: Leading through Growth and Investment in Quality Healthcare for Western New York

Erie County Medical Center ECMC) has always been a leader providing quality care. From its beginning over 100 years ago as Buffalo City Hospital (est. 1918), ECMC has grown to become among our region’s leading healthcare institutions. As an employer, as well as a healthcare provider, ECMC continues to play a key role in the quality of life of Buffalo and Western New York. With over 3,800 employees, including a significant percentage residing in ECMC’s East Side of Buffalo neighborhood, the institution contributes to our region’s overall economic vitality and sustainability. Over the past five years, ECMC has experienced consistent growth in both patient volume and financial strength, reinforcing the strategic decisions to align ECMC’s core clinical strengths – trauma and burn care, behavioral health and orthopaedics – with key service lines like transplantation, head & neck oncology, and bariatrics. In 2020, ECMC had approximately 300,000 outpatient visits; over 65,000 Emergency Department patients and approximately 20,000 inpatients.

Further enhancing and strengthening that continued growth in operations is ECMC’s dynamic and unique culture. Based on a strong legacy of medical innovation, collaboration and compassionate care, ECMC’s caregivers everyday live the mission of the institution to provide every patient the highest quality of care delivered with compassion. From the most influential to the most vulnerable, every patient at ECMC is treated equally, with respect and an overriding determination to help them heal and return to their active lifestyle.

ECMC’s 65-acre health campus was first home to the Buffalo City Hospital, which opened on the location in 1918. The hospital was renamed Edward J. Meyer Memorial Hospital in 1939 and then became Erie County Medical Center in 1978. ECMC is an advanced academic medical center with 573 inpatient beds, on- and off-campus health centers, more than 30 outpatient specialty care services and Terrace View, a 390-bed long-term care facility. ECMC is Western New York’s only Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, as well as a regional center for burn care, behavioral health services, transplantation, medical oncology and head & neck cancer care, rehabilitation and is a major teaching facility for the University at Buffalo.

In 2004, ECMC became an independent health system as a public benefit corporation and was renamed the Erie County Medical Center Corporation (ECMCC). As an independent corporation, ECMC gained the ability to engage in revenue-generating joint ventures with physician groups and other healthcare organizations to enhance and strengthen patient care and ensure its long-term sustainability, contributing further to its leading position among Western New York healthcare institutions and businesses in general. In 2008, ECMC formed Great Lakes Health System of Western New York, an integrated health system, with their partners at Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo. The collaborative effort was designed to make health care more efficient, improve quality, avoid duplication of medical services and make them more accessible. The respective institutions have maintained their independence, but the system, created via New York State law, enables the partners to collaborate on a wide variety of healthcare initiatives that draw from the specialized strengths and expertise of each of the respective partner organizations.

To ensure that it maintains that strength and sustainability, ECMC has invested in its new, state-of-the-art KeyBank Trauma Center and Emergency Department facility (opened in June 2020); a new Main Entrance and Russell J. Salvatore Atrium (opened in February 2020) and in its exterior Building Envelope to be completed in 2022; and other major Interior Renovations set for completion during 2023. These significant capital improvements contribute to ECMC’s long-term viability and maintaining the delivery of high-quality healthcare services.

As it moves into its second century, ECMC continues to focus on collaboration with its community and healthcare partners from Kaleida Health and the University at Buffalo for continued growth and future success, which will contribute further to the strength and vitality of Buffalo and Western New York.