University of Pennsylvania Health System

• 1. Introduction

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  Pennsylvania Hospital has been treating patients in Philadelphia since 1751, making it the oldest hospital in the United States. It sits today inside a vast network called the University of Pennsylvania Health System, known as UPHS, which stretches from South Jersey to Lancaster County and now counts seven hospitals among its members. How did a single colonial-era institution become the anchor of one of the country's major academic medical systems? And what holds such a sprawling network together? Those are the questions this documentary sets out to answer.

• 2. Colonial Roots

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  Pennsylvania Hospital opened in 1751 in Center City Philadelphia, predating the American Revolution by a quarter century. It was not just the first hospital in the country; it stood alone in that distinction for many years. When the University of Pennsylvania brought both Pennsylvania Hospital and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania into its health system in 1993, it was formally joining two institutions that had independently shaped American medicine for generations. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania carries its own landmark claim: it was the first university-owned teaching hospital in the United States, having opened its doors in 1874. Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, which joined the system in 1995, opened in 1871 and today houses Penn's departments of Orthopaedics and Ophthalmology alongside long-term care and nursing home facilities.

• 3. Academic Medicine Partnership

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  UPHS does not operate alone. Together with the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, it forms Penn Medicine, a combined clinical and research entity. That partnership gives the system its academic character: every hospital listed under UPHS is classified as a teaching facility. The Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, which opened in 2008 in the University City neighborhood of Philadelphia, reflects the research side of that identity. It houses the Abramson Cancer Center and the Roberts Proton Therapy Center, two specialist facilities that draw patients well beyond the Philadelphia region.

• 4. Decades of Expansion

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  Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pennsylvania, first opened in 1892 and joined UPHS in 2013. Lancaster General Hospital, which had been serving Lancaster, Pennsylvania since 1893, followed two years later as part of what became the Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health network. That network also brought in Women and Babies Hospital, a specialty facility that opened in 2000, along with Lancaster Rehabilitation Hospital, which opened in 2007 and is co-owned with Kindred Healthcare, and a behavioral health hospital co-owned with Universal Health Services. Princeton Medical Center in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey, which opened in 1919, officially merged into UPHS in January 2018 as the anchor of Penn Medicine Princeton Health. Doylestown Hospital in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, opened in 1923, became the system's seventh hospital when it joined in 2025 as part of Penn Medicine Doylestown Health.

• 5. A Hospital That Left

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  Phoenixville Hospital, located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, once belonged to the UPHS network before being sold to Community Health Systems in 2004. CHS itself sold the hospital again in 2017, this time to Tower Health. The departure and subsequent resale of Phoenixville Hospital illustrates that the boundaries of large health systems are not fixed; facilities move in and out of networks depending on shifting priorities and market conditions. Meanwhile, the rehabilitation facility now called Penn Medicine Rittenhouse has been part of the system since 1997, operating since 1916 and today housing the Penn Medicine Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine through a partnership called Good Shepherd Penn Partners.

• 6. Rankings and Geography

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  In 2020, University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian was ranked the 15th best hospital in the United States by U.S. News and World Report. The system's footprint by that point already extended from Center City Philadelphia and University City out to Chester County, Lancaster County, and across the Delaware River into southern New Jersey via Penn Medicine Cherry Hill and Princeton Medical Center. Outpatient facilities like Penn Medicine Radnor in Radnor Township offer primary and specialized care beyond the main hospital campuses, and Penn Medicine University City serves as home to the Penn Musculoskeletal Center. The 2025 addition of Doylestown Hospital extended the network's reach into Bucks County, adding a facility that has served its community since 1923.