San Francisco General Hospital

Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center
San Francisco Department of Public Health
San Francisco General Hospital (seen against the backdrop of Potrero Hill and the Bay Bridge, and parts of the Mission District in the foreground)
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Geography
Location	1001 Potrero Ave San Francisco, California 94110, United States
Coordinates	37°45′20″N 122°24′18″W / 37.75556°N 122.40500°W / 37.75556; -122.40500 (San Francisco General Hospital)Coordinates: 37°45′20″N 122°24′18″W / 37.75556°N 122.40500°W / 37.75556; -122.40500 (San Francisco General Hospital)
Organization
Care system	Medicaid, Medicare, Public
Type	Teaching
Affiliated university	University of California, San Francisco
Services
Emergency department	Level I trauma center
Beds	403 General Acute Care 22 Acute Psychiatric 59 Skilled Nursing Mental Health 30 Skilled Nursing Med/Surg
History
Opened	1850
Links
Website	zuckerbergsanfranciscogeneral.org
Lists	Hospitals in the United States

The Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center (ZSFG) is a public hospital in San Francisco, California under the purview of the city's Department of Public Health. It serves as the only Level I Trauma Center for the 1.5 million residents of San Francisco and northern San Mateo County.^[1] It is the largest acute inpatient and rehabilitation hospital for psychiatric patients in the city. Additionally, it is the only acute hospital in San Francisco that provides 24-hour psychiatric emergency services.

In addition to the approximately 3,500 San Francisco municipal employees, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) provides approximately 1,500 employees (including physicians, nurses and ancillary personnel), and the SFGH serves as one of the teaching hospitals for the UCSF School of Medicine. The hospital, especially its Ward 86,^[2] was instrumental in treating and identifying early cases of AIDS. A new San Francisco General Hospital acute care building was completed in 2016 for a total approximate cost of $1.02 billion. A $75 million donation by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan^[3] covered approximately 7% of the overall cost. In recognition, the hospital was renamed after the couple.^[4]

The hospital is a safety net hospital additionally serving poor, elderly people, uninsured working families, and immigrants. As of 2014, 92 percent of the patient population at SFGH either receives publicly funded health insurance (Medicare or Medi-Cal) or is uninsured.^[5]

SFGH is rare in that its emergency rooms do not have agreements in place with private health care insurance providers. Until 2019, privately insured patients were often billed the balance of their care, which could be sizable. This practice was changed after media attention regarding the hospital's billing practices.^[6]

History[]

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San Francisco opened its first permanent hospital in 1857.^[7]

In 2015, Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife Priscilla Chan gave $75 million to help fund equipment and technology for the new hospital.^[8] In 2016, the new hospital building was completed. The new building was the first hospital in San Francisco to be constructed with a base-isolated foundation for protection against earthquakes. Notable improvements include expanding the capacity of the emergency department and increasing the number of general admission beds, increasing the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds, and combining the previously separate surgical and medical units into one ICU.^{[citation needed]}

Billing practices[]

Through early 2019, SFGH did not participate in any private health insurance networks and practiced balance billing. A Vox analysis (derived from a database of more than a thousand emergency room bills) characterized the hospital's billing practices as "aggressive" and "surprising": one privately insured patient arriving at the hospital after a bicycle accident was billed more than $20,000 for diagnostic scans and treatment for a broken arm;^[9] the bill was 12 times the Medicare billing rate.^[10] After media attention, SFGH changed its billing policy so that privately insured patients would be billed at rates consistent with their insurers' network rates, with an income-based maximum.^[11]

Artwork[]

The hospital owns and displays two paintings by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, donated to the hospital by Dr. Leo Eloesser. Eloesser interned at SFGH and was Kahlo's physician.^[12][13]

The Pediatric Emergency Department features a mural by artist Sirron Norris entitled The Land of the Helping Hand, which features local iconography.^[14]

Notable deaths[]

• Diane Whipple, American lacrosse player and coach, dog mauling victim
• Ed Lee, attorney, politician and mayor of San Francisco, died from cardiac arrest

See also[]

• List of hospitals in California

References[]

External links[]

• SFGH site at SF Dep't of Public Health
• UCSF SFGH site
• SFGH campus maps
• Center for Vulnerable Populations
• This hospital in the CA Healthcare Atlas A project by OSHPD
• Brain and Spinal Injury Center
• Orthopaedic Trauma Institute