Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Wake Forest College Medical School was founded as a two-year medical school on the campus of Wake Forest College in Wake Forest, N.C., in 1902.[2] North Carolina Baptist Hospital was established in 1923 as an 88-bed community hospital in Winston-Salem. The will of a president of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. gave about $750,000 to move the medical school to Winston-Salem and make it a four-year institution. Named after its benefactor, Bowman Gray School of Medicine opened in Winston-Salem in 1941, affiliating with N.C. Baptist Hospital to create "the Miracle on Hawthorne Hill."

Brenner Children's Hospital, a 144-bed "hospital within a hospital," opened in 1986. In 1997, the institutions realigned as Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. In 2011, as part of the institution's move to become a unified structure, the corporate entity was rebranded as Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Clinical operations throughout a 24-county service area in northwest North Carolina and southwest Virginia now fall under the umbrella of Wake Forest Baptist Health, and the academic component is now known as Wake Forest School of Medicine.[3]

In 2002, Wake Forest Baptist began operating the Davie County Hospital in Mocksville, which was built in 1956 and expanded in 1965 and 1974.[4] Davie Medical Center in Bermuda Run opened Medical Plaza 1in August 2013, and Medical Plaza 2 in October 2013.[5] The second plaza added an emergency department and operating room, among other things.[6] A $47 million, 78,220-square-foot 50-bed expansion opened April 3, 2017. Inpatient services were moved from the Mocksville location.[7]

As of October 1, 2008, Lexington Memorial Hospital affiliated with Wake Forest Baptist.[8] Since then, the two institutions have helped each other with research and patient care.

In July 2017, Wake Forest Baptist began a 30-year lease with Wilkes Medical Center after an agreement with North Wilkesboro.[9] WFB and WMC had already been working together for nearly a decade, and decided to expand their services together.

On October 25, 2017, Wake Forest Baptist and High Point Regional Health System announced that Wake Forest Baptist would take over High Point Regional, a part of UNC Health Care since 2013, by Summer 2018.[10] This change was intended to encourage the growth of High Point Regional and expand its ability to care for patients.

On April 10, 2019, Wake Forest Baptist and Atrium Health in Charlotte, North Carolina signed a memorandum of understanding as the first step toward a partnership. On October 31 the companies said an agreement had been reached and, pending regulatory approval, the partnership would be completed March 31, 2020. A medical school in Charlotte could be built by 2021 or 2022.[11] On October 9, 2020, the companies announced they would become one with the name Atrium Health.[12]

The hospital is a Level I trauma center serving the entire Piedmont region of North Carolina. It also houses one of three Level I Pediatric Trauma Centers in North Carolina. It also offers a pediatric Emergency Department, and pediatric and neonatal intensive-care units.[13] It is also home to AirCare, the hospital's critical care transport service that operates both ground ambulances and three helicopters at the critical care level.[14]

AirCare helicopter

Wake Forest School of Medicine closely aligns its academic and research missions with clinical work, providing patients with leading-edge technology and clinical trials.

The Wake Forest Innovations division operates Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, a mixed-use center in downtown Winston-Salem that is a hub for some of the world's foremost biotechnology, materials science and information technology research. Key tenants in the park are the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), which is working to engineer replacement tissues and organs and develop healing cell therapies for more than 40 different areas of the body, and Inmar, an information technology company that employs 900 people.

Wake Forest Baptist Health operates 16 free-standing, outpatient dialysis centers, which are located throughout the Triad and the Western Piedmont region, allowing patients to access dialysis services close to home; it is the largest academically owned and operated dialysis operation in the country. In 2012, a Joslin Diabetes Center opened at one of Wake Forest Baptist Health's locations in Winston-Salem, offering multidisciplinary care to diabetes patients; Joslin is an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, an international leader in diabetes research, care and education.

Wake Forest Baptist Health also operates a network of subsidiaries and affiliate hospitals including Wake Forest Baptist Health—Lexington Medical Center, a 94-bed acute-care facility in Lexington, NC, and Wake Forest Baptist Health—Davie Medical Center, which includes a 25-bed inpatient hospital in Mocksville, NC, and an outpatient campus in Bermuda Run, N.C., featuring a 24/7 emergency department, imaging and diagnostic services, and various specialty health and medical offices.[1] Most recently Wake Forest Baptist Health affiliated with Wilkes Regional Medical Center, now called Wake Forest Baptist Health – Wilkes Medical Center, a 130-bed inpatient hospital in North Wilkesboro, NC, with a 30-year lease agreement.[15]

The Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma was established in 2008 through a donation by Richard Childress and his wife, Judy.[16] The institute's mission is to lead national efforts to reduce death and disability following injury to children less than 18 years old.[17] Pediatric trauma is the No. 1 killer of children ages 1–18 in America. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), nearly 10,000 children die each year from trauma – more than all other causes combined.[18] The Childress Institute, located at Wake Forest Innovation Quarter, is focused on funding research and medical education throughout the U.S. to improve treatment, as well as raising public awareness about the magnitude of pediatric trauma.[19]

Wake Forest Medical Center Sign

The School of Medicine's Coy C. Carpenter Library and Dorothy Carpenter Medical Archives are named after the first dean of the school, Coy Cornelius Carpenter, M.D., and his wife, Dorothy (Mitten) Carpenter. The library and archives support clinical missions, educational research, staff and patrons of the Medical Center.[2][20]