The University of Alberta Hospital (UAH) is a

research Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

and

teaching Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely ...

hospital in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada. The hospital is affiliated with the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

and run by

Alberta Health Services Alberta Health Services (AHS) which is headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta is the single health authority for the Canadian province of Alberta and the "largest integrated provincial health care system" in Canada. AHS delivers medical care on beh ...

, the

health authority Between 1996 and 2002 the English National Health Service was organised under the following health authorities. In 2002 the health authorities were reorganised and their boundaries changed to constitute 28 strategic health authorities, which were ...

for Alberta. It is one of Canada's leading health sciences centres, providing a comprehensive range of diagnostic and treatment services to inpatients and outpatients. The UAH treats over 700,000 patients annually. The University of Alberta Hospital, Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute and the

Stollery Children's Hospital The Stollery Children's Hospital is a 218 bed children's hospital that opened in October 2001. It is a "hospital within a hospital," being situated within the University of Alberta Hospital and co-located with Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute i ...

co-reside within the large Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre (WMC) and act as embedded "hospitals within a hospital." With 650, 146 and 89 inpatient beds in the three hospitals, respectively, WMC has an estimated total of 885 beds. Combined, this makes the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre one of the largest hospitals in Western Canada, exceeding the Royal Alexandra Hospital's 869 beds, but behind Calgary's

Foothills Medical Centre Foothills Medical Centre (FMC) is the largest hospital in the province of Alberta and is located in the city of Calgary. It is one of Canada's most recognized medical facilities and one of the leading research and teaching hospitals. Foothills M ...

. The Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute is located in a new expansion to the WMC that opened on May 1, 2008. Because of UAH, the surrounding area has become part of a healthcare cluster that also includes the

Cross Cancer Institute Cross Cancer Institute is the comprehensive cancer centre for northern Alberta. The institute, named for Wallace Warren Cross, is located in Edmonton near the southwest corner of the University of Alberta, and is one of two tertiary cancer centre ...

, the Heritage Medical Research Building, the Zeidler Ledcor Center, the

Katz Group The Katz Group of Companies is a Canadian privately-owned enterprise, with Samantha operations. In sports and entertainment and real estate development. Oilers Entertainment Group (OEG), a subsidiary of the Katz Group, owns the National Hockey Lea ...

Rexall Rexall was a chain of American drugstores, and the name of their store-branded products. The stores, having roots in the federation of United Drug Stores starting in 1903, licensed the Rexall brand name to as many as 12,000 drug stores across th ...

Center for Pharmacy and Health Research, the Kaye Edmonton Clinic, and the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy. The whole complex is served by the Health Sciences/Jubilee light rail transit station and the University station.

History

The University of Alberta Hospital opened in 1906 with five staff members as the Strathcona Hospital. Since then, it has steadily grown into a world class facility which now is staffed by over 8,000 staff and physicians (as of 2007). The hospital began training

nurse Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health c ...

s through a recognized apprenticeship program in 1908. In 1916 during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

it served as the Strathcona Military Hospital. It was the provincial rehabilitation centre for the

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

epidemics in the 1920s and 1950s. Dr. Hepburn, a pioneering

neurosurgeon Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and peri ...

, developed "The Edmonton Tongs" as initial treatment for

cervical spine In tetrapods, cervical vertebrae (singular: vertebra) are the vertebrae of the neck, immediately below the skull. Truncal vertebrae (divided into thoracic and lumbar vertebrae in mammals) lie caudal (toward the tail) of cervical vertebrae. In sau ...

injuries in the late 1920s. Dr. John Callaghan performed Canada's first open-heart surgery here in 1956, and the first

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

valve replacement Valve replacement surgery is the replacement of one or more of the heart valves with either an artificial heart valve or a bioprosthesis (homograft from human tissue or xenograft e.g. from pig). It is an alternative to valve repair. __TOC__ Proce ...

six years later in 1962. The first

heart transplant A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. , the most common procedu ...

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

was performed at the hospital in 1985, and by 2001 the hospital had conducted 500

and heart-lung transplants. In 2001 the Stollery Children's Hospital opened. In 2006, the hospital had the most technically advanced and only

intensive care unit 220px, Intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensi ...

dedicated solely to the treatment of burn patients.

Stollery Children's Hospital

The

is a 150 bed

children's hospital A children's hospital is a hospital that offers its services exclusively to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In certain special cases, they may also treat adults. The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th ...

that opened in October 2001. It is a ''hospital within a hospital'', being situated within the University of Alberta Hospital. The hospital, which is run by

, is named for Bob and Shirley Stollery who provided the original donation that went to help with the creation of the hospital.

Library

The John W. Scott Health Sciences Library was opened in 1984, and was named after the Dean of Medicine from 1948 to 1959. The University of Alberta Libraries is a member of the

Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and resea ...

Canadian Association of Research Libraries The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) was established in 1976 and brings together thirty-one research libraries. Twenty-nine members are university libraries, plus Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the National Research Council ...

, and is a contributor to the

Open Content Alliance The Open Content Alliance (OCA) was a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California ...

Specialized services

Cardiac care

The University of Alberta Hospital's cardiac sciences program includes adult and

pediatric Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

cardiology and heart surgery. The program also does research in

vascular The blood vessels are the components of the circulatory system that transport blood throughout the human body. These vessels transport blood cells, nutrients, and oxygen to the tissues of the body. They also take waste and carbon dioxide away f ...

biology and

electrophysiology Electrophysiology (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''ēlektron'', "amber" ee the Electron#Etymology, etymology of "electron" , ''physis'', "nature, origin"; and , ''-logy, -logia'') is the branch of physiology that studies the electrical propertie ...

. The University of Alberta Hospital is the pioneering hospital for open-heart surgery in Canada.

Transplant program

The University Hospital's transplant program is claimed to be recognized as one of the best in Canada and the world. It has been ranked #6 worldwide in 2017 by CWUR. It is touted as a leader in both the numbers of transplant procedures performed and success rates. At the hospital, patients can receive heart, lung,

liver The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it ...

kidney The kidneys are two reddish-brown bean-shaped organs found in vertebrates. They are located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space, and in adult humans are about in length. They receive blood from the paired renal arteries; blo ...

pancreas The pancreas is an organ of the digestive system and endocrine system of vertebrates. In humans, it is located in the abdomen behind the stomach and functions as a gland. The pancreas is a mixed or heterocrine gland, i.e. it has both an en ...

intestinal The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans and ...

and

islet cell The pancreatic islets or islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine (hormone-producing) cells, discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans. The pancreatic islets constitute 1–2% of ...

transplants. The University Hospital's Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute is the largest heart transplant program in Canada. It is the centre for all open-heart surgery for Edmonton & Northern Alberta, and the centre for all complex pediatric cardiac surgery for

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

& Northern Canada. The institute performs more than 1,300 open-heart surgeries annually. The University of Alberta Hospital is home to the most comprehensive organ and tissue transplant program in Canada - providing gold standard care to more than eight million Canadians across

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

, Nunavut, the

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

and the Northwest Territories. No other program offers the complete range of transplant procedures — heart, kidney, liver, lung, heart/lung, small bowel, pancreas, islet, eye and tissue. The University of Alberta Hospital is home to the largest

islet transplant An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent ...

program in the world, and the birthplace of the Edmonton Protocol, a revolutionary procedure for conducting islet transplants on patients with

Type 1 diabetes Type 1 diabetes (T1D), formerly known as juvenile diabetes, is an autoimmune disease that originates when cells that make insulin (beta cells) are destroyed by the immune system. Insulin is a hormone required for the cells to use blood sugar ...

Neuroscience

The University of Alberta Hospital contains a dedicated

neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

s intensive care environment. This area is dedicated to the treatment of complex conditions such as strokes,

brain tumours A brain tumor occurs when abnormal cells form within the brain. There are two main types of tumors: malignant tumors and benign (non-cancerous) tumors. These can be further classified as primary tumors, which start within the brain, and secondar ...

, as well as

spinal cord The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the sp ...

and brain injuries. An inter-disciplinary team uses state-of-the-art technology to coordinate the treatment of these conditions.

Burn treatment

The University of Alberta Hospital receives patients from all over Western Canada in the Fire Fighter's Burn Treatment Unit. This is one of the most technologically advanced and highly acclaimed burn care units in the world. A multidisciplinary team that includes nurses, physicians and physical,

respiratory The respiratory system (also respiratory apparatus, ventilatory system) is a biological system consisting of specific organs and structures used for gas exchange in animals and plants. The anatomy and physiology that make this happen varies gre ...

, and

occupational therapist Occupational therapists (OTs) are health care professionals specializing in occupational therapy and occupational science. OTs and occupational therapy assistants (OTAs) use scientific bases and a holistic perspective to promote a person's abi ...

s provide care for burn patients.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Alberta Hospital 1906 establishments in Alberta Certified airports in Alberta Edmonton Metropolitan Region Heliports in Canada Hospitals established in 1906 Hospitals in Edmonton Teaching hospitals in Canada University of Alberta buildings