City: Germantown, TN

Category: Health Care

Telephone: (901) 516-6418

Address: 7691 Poplar Avenue

Description: This major health-care system, listed as one of the top 100 Integrated Health Networks by Modern Healthcare, is the third largest nonprofit hospital in the country and includes a network of five Tennessee hospitals and surgery centers, the hub of which is Methodist University Hospital, a 693-bed medical center near downtown Memphis, newly affiliated with the University of Tennessee. It’s the same location where 125-bed Methodist Hospital was first built in 1924, after John H. Sherard convinced fellow Methodists in the region to start a hospital.Methodist operates, in addition to its central medical center, three other Memphis-area medical centers as well as a hospital in Somerville. Methodist has aggressively expanded its other hospitals in Shelby County into freestanding medical centers. They provide most of the care people need, from advanced cardiac care to birthing centers, but close to home. That frees much of Methodist University Hospital to concentrate on the most complex cases, from heart transplants to brain surgery. Methodist University Hospital has four Centers of Excellence, providing research, training, and treatment in cardiology, oncology, women’s services, and neuroscience. Along with Baptist Healthcare, Methodist also oversees the new Hamilton Eye Institute, a one-of-a-kind $70 million ophthalmology center that combines research, teaching, and advanced care. Methodist University Hospital is also home to the Memphis Gamma Knife Center, which provides a specialized type of radiation for tumors too deep in the brain to be reached by surgery. Its Emergency Department treats more than 48,000 patients each year. Since merging with Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, Methodist has expanded the reach of the pediatric hospital into many Methodist facilities.