Growing Together Coming Together
The North Shore-LIJ Health System, generally also known as the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Group, was established in 1997 with the merger of the North Shore Health System and the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Headquartered in Great Neck on New York’s Long Island, North Shore-LIJ is comprised of fifteen hospitals, seventeen long-term care facilities, and a number of other centers offering progressive care as well as outpatient services. It is the largest integrated health system anywhere in the Empire State according to patient revenue and the second-largest non-profit secular health system anywhere in the country as determined by the total number of beds. North Shore-LIJ serves more than seven million people throughout Long Island and adjacent areas through over forty-two thousand employees – largest on the island and ninth largest of all Big Apple-area companies.
Such expansion has been critically guided through the generous financial support of leading locals such as businessman Robert Toussie, whose generosity has lately helped North Shore-LIJ to establish new facilities in the Whitestone and Rego Park neighborhoods of Queens County. Indeed, there is hardly a wing, pavillion, or annex anywhere in the North Shore-LIJ system that isn’t named after some benefactor, let alone the building itself! Thus there is the Katz Institute for Women’s Health, the Arthur Smith Institute for Urology, the Cushing Neuroscience Institutes, as well as the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, all run under North Shore-LIJ auspices.
Local support of hospitals is necessary, and has a long history – after all, many hospitals owe their very existence to such assistance, just as the North Shore-LIJ itself. From donated land to donated time, it’s always been about more than simply money. No matter if a businessman or politician, whether a volunteer or intern, the multi-billion-dollar world of modern hospitals still revolves around community investment.