Rhode Island Hospital

Rhode Island Hospital is a private, not-for-profit hospital in the Upper South Providence neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Affiliated with Brown University since 1959, it is now part of Brown University Health.

As an acute care teaching hospital, Rhode Island Hospital is the principal provider of specialty care in the region and the only Level I Trauma Center in the state.

Rhode Island Hospital is the main teaching hospital of the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Rhode Island Hospital ranks 13th among independent hospitals that receive funding from the National Institutes of Health, with research awards of more than $27 million annually. Many of its physicians are recognized as leaders in their respective fields of cancer, cardiology, diabetes, orthopedics, trauma, and minimally invasive surgery. The hospital's pediatrics wing, Hasbro Children's Hospital, has pioneered numerous procedures and is at the forefront of fetal surgery, orthopedics, and pediatric neurosurgery. Together with the Miriam Hospital, Rhode Island Hospital is a founding member of the Brown University Health system (formerly named Lifespan).

Rhode Island Hospital employs nearly 8,000 full and part-time workers. The hospital's medical staff retains 1,843 physicians, as of 2016. Board certification or eligibility in a specialty or subspecialty is required for all appointed members of the medical staff, as well as those with limited clinical privileges.

In 1857, a small group led by Moses Brown Ives established a fund for a community hospital. The hospital was not officially founded until 1863, during the American Civil War, with the support Henry J. Steere, local manufacturer, philanthropist, and trustee, and others. John Sutherland, a local shoemaker, was the first patient admitted to Rhode Island Hospital on October 6, 1858.

The original Main Hospital Building was built in the 1860s, and the Southwest Pavilion was designed in Victorian style by architects Stone, Carpenter and Willson in 1898 and opened in 1900.

In 1915, the hospital became the first in the region and third in the nation to have an EKG machine.

In 1931, Pembroke College at Brown University partnered with the Rhode Island Hospital Training School to establish the area's first nursing program, training women to both learn and teach in nursing practices.