Since the founding of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1902 and North Carolina Baptist Hospital in 1923, Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist has grown into a nationally recognized academic medical center and health system, operating as an integrated enterprise of educational and research facilities, hospitals, outpatient clinics, emergency and urgent care centers, diagnostic units, physician practices and a commercialization division to bring innovative technologies to the bedside.
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist is part of Advocate Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems. Wake Forest University School of Medicine serves as the academic core of Advocate Health.
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist combines the delivery of superb patient- and family-centered care with a proven record of outstanding achievement and pioneering efforts in education, research and innovation. Its enterprises include:
Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, an 885-bed tertiary-care hospital in Winston-Salem, NC, that includes the region’s only children’s hospital, Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital and The Birth Center. The Medical Center is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center the J. Paul Sticht Center, a national center for Aging and Alzheimer’s disease, the region’s only Level I adult and children’s trauma center, the region's only burn center, the comprehensive eye center as well as to clinical centers of excellence in multiple specialties including cardiovascular, brain health and neurology, sports medicine and orthopaedics, transplantation and nephrology. It is also home to AirCare, part of an EMS network serving patients in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina and to the Brenner Children’s Hospital Critical Care Neonatal/Pediatric Team, which transports critically ill children to the pediatric intensive care unit, the pediatric emergency department and the neonatal intensive care unit at Brenner Children’s.
The regional health system’s network encompasses the Winston-Salem campus and five community hospitals:
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist High Point Medical Center (Guilford County, 351 beds)
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Wilkes Medical Center (Wilkes County, 130 beds)
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Lexington Medical Center (Davidson County, 94 beds)
- Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Davie Medical Center (Davie County, 50 beds)
- Alleghany Health, in partnership with Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital (Alleghany County)
Wake Forest Baptist also operates urgent care centers; the emergency departments at numerous community hospitals; maternal-fetal, and neonatal units; freestanding dialysis, imaging and endoscopy facilities; and, with the Wake Forest Health Network community practices and more than 232 primary and specialty clinics.
Wake Forest University School of Medicine, offers MD, PA, academic nursing, residency, fellowship and graduate degree programs across multiple locations. It also leads research in the fields of aging and mobility; Alzheimer’s disease; cancer, cardiovascular disease; diabetes, obesity and metabolism, neurosciences; public health sciences; regenerative medicine and substance use. The School of Medicine received more than $400 million in external research funding in 2023. In addition, the School of Medicine’s PA program is ranked #16 and the Nurse Anesthesia program is ranked #7 in the country.
Innovation Quarter
Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, along with development partner, Wexford Science + Technology, created the perfect environment for pioneering education, research and discovery.
Located in downtown Winston-Salem, Innovation Quarter comprises approximately 2 million square feet of office, laboratory and educational space - much of it in converted tobacco factories and warehouses - on its 300-plus acres.
Innovation Quarter is home to Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Bowman Gray Center for Medical Education and the School of Medicine’s discovery commercialization enterprise, Wake Forest Innovations. In addition to the School of Medicine, four other academic institutions have a presence in Innovation Quarter.
