About SFGH

San Francisco General Hospital is the Heart of San Francisco. We save lives. We are a Level 1 Trauma Center and the City's safety net, serving anyone in need. Nestled at the foot of Potrero Hill in the city's Mission District, the public hospital has been an essential part of San Francisco 's health care system since 1872. Considered one of the finest public hospitals in the US, the General, as many refer to it, offers humanistic, cost-effective and culturally competent care to an international community of patients regardless of their ability to pay. This history has had a strong impact on the hospital's culture and creed.

Our Vision is to Provide Healthcare and Trauma Services for People in Need.

Our Mission is to Provide Quality Healthcare and Trauma Services with Compassion and Respect.

Our Values

• Patient and Staff Safety
• Quality Healthcare
• Disease Prevention
• Staff Retention and Recruitment
• Culturally Responsive Care
• Efficient Resource Management
• Academic Excellence in Training and Research

Our Goals

1. Promote Patient Safety
2. Implement Healthy San Francisco
3. Promote Organizational and Staff Cultural Responsiveness
4. Promote Staff Retention and Recruitment
5. Improve Hospital Infrastructure
6. Plan for the Replacement Hospital
7. Comply with all regulatory standards and performance improvement initiatives

FACTS

The San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (SFGH for short) is a general acute care hospital providing a complete variety of health services, including inpatient, outpatient, trauma, emergency, skilled nursing, diagnostic, mental health, and rehabilitation services for adults and children.

County Hospital

SFGH is owned by the City and County of San Francisco and operated by the Department of Public Health's Community Health Network, which is responsible for the administration of SFGH.

Location

SFGH has been continuously located in the Mission District of San Francisco, since 1872 at 1001 Potrero Avenue , just west of Potrero Hill and Highway 101, and north of Cesar Chavez Street .

The Campus

The San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center campus occupies approximately 24 acres. The main hospital building is both an acute and ambulatory care building, containing the outpatient clinics, an emergency department, and inpatient beds. Other SFGH buildings are occupied by outpatient clinics, research, and support services.

Historical Partnership

The University of California , San Francisco has been the City's partner for providing patient care since 1873. All of the physicians at SFGH are UCSF faculty, committed to providing high quality care to the people of San Francisco . Today, some 2,000 UCSF physicians, specialty nurses, health care professionals and other professionals work side-by-side with 3,500 City employees at SFGH.

Trauma

SFGH operates the City's only trauma center, treating over 3,000 severely injured patients annually. The trauma center is designated as "Level 1", the highest level available. This designation means that SFGH must provide comprehensive care to the most severely injured patient 24 hours a day/7 days a week. It necessitates a wide range of resources, including in-house trauma surgeons specializing in orthopedic-, general-, and neurosurgery, anesthesiologists, other promptly available specialists, and a highly-specialized nursing staff.

Emergency

SFGH operates a full-service emergency department, treating patients for emergencies such as heart attacks, asthma, cuts, sprains, allergic reactions, and gastrointestinal bleeding. The emergency department at SFGH is the first responder for trauma patients and is the only center in San Francisco for sexual assault evaluation, paramedic medical direction, care of patients in custody, and extensive social service and interpreter services. The ED saw 53,000 patients last year, and had around 10,000 ambulance arrivals.

Psychiatric Care and Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES)

PES at SFGH provides 24-hour, 7-day a week emergency assessment, stabilization and disposition for acutely ill adult psychiatric patients who are San Francisco residents. PES is the only designated evaluation facility for adult patients placed on psychiatric holds, known in public-safety parlance as "5150". PES provides emergency assessment and hospital placement for San Francisco patients placed in sub-acute facilities that are experiencing an acute exacerbation. SFGH is the largest acute inpatient and rehabilitation hospital for psychiatric patients in San Francisco .

Inpatient Hospital

Despite SFGH being budgeted to operate 302 in-patient beds, the hospital, its physicians and staff served between 320 and 350 in-patients per day, on average, in 2005. In FY 2004-05, 17,874 patients were admitted to SFGH. In that same year, 1,223 babies were born at SFGH, and 3,000 women, many of whom are high-risk, received pre-natal care.

Surgery

SFGH has ten operating rooms. One is always reserved for trauma patients. In FY 2004-05, 5,977 surgical procedures were performed; half of them were emergencies.

Primary Care and Clinical Services

SFGH provides primary care that is comprehensive, continuous, accessible, organized, coordinated and accountable. Outpatient clinics at SFGH had 289,822 patient visits last year, almost half of which were for patients seeking to see their primary care doctor.

Partners for Patients

Patient care at SFGH is provided primarily by UCSF physicians, specialty nurses, lab professionals, and health care professionals who are employed by UCSF, and by nurses and health care professionals employed by the City.

UCSF Doctors

The City pays UCSF for the patient care services provided by UCSF doctors and health care professionals through an affiliation agreement. UCSF doctors and health care professionals work together with City nurses, administrators and health care workers to serve patients at SFGH.

Workers

There are over 5,500 people working at the San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center . More than 3,500 are employees of the City and over 2,000 are employed by UCSF.

Budget

Of SFGH's operating budget of $465 million, about 80 percent comes from payments from Medi-Cal, Medicare, other insurance plans, and directly from patients for care delivered by UCSF physicians and allied health care professionals. Less than 20 percent of SFGH's budget comes from the city's general fund.

Payer Mix

SFGH's inpatients payer mix includes those insured by Medi-Cal (45%), Medicare (23%), commercial insurance and other sources (11%). SFGH's outpatients payer mix includes those insured by Medi-Cal (34%), Medicare (16%), commercial insurance and other sources (14%).

Uninsured

SFGH is the major health care provider for the estimated 150,000 people in San Francisco who are without health insurance coverage. Although about 8% of patients served at SFGH are homeless, a large number of these uninsured patients are working full time.

Patients

SFGH serves a diverse patient population. Staff at SFGH provide services in more than 20 languages. Patients at SFGH are ethnically and racially diverse: 20% are African American, 20% are Asian/Pacific Islander, 25% are Caucasian, and 30% are Hispanic. The General serves about the same number of men as women (51% men, 49% women). About 43% of patients are under age 35, about 49% are between 35and 65 years old.

Research

The SFGH campus is home to more than 20 UCSF research centers, affiliated institutes, and major laboratories. More than 160 UCSF principal investigators conduct research through programs based at the hospital campus with an annual budget over $83 million. These research activities support SFGH's patient care by enabling SFGH to attract leading physician-scientists, who provide patient care as well as pursuing their research activities.

Medical Education and Training

SFGH is staffed by one of the top medical programs in the country - the UCSF School of Medicine, along with the UCSF Schools of Nursing, Dentistry, and Pharmacy. On any given day, about one-third of all UCSF residents and fellows - more than 200 physicians - are working and training at SFGH.

As an academic hospital, SFGH is on the cutting edge of the latest medical advances. SFGH promotes academic excellence through its wide range of services for a diverse patient population.