Not only did Mt. Sinai become a superior teaching and research medical center, but from the 1960s to the 1990s, it was perhaps the largest private provider of care to the poor in Ohio. The Mt. Sinai Medical Center operated the east side’s only Level I Trauma Center and had Cleveland’s first and for some years only emergency medicine residency training program. Mt. Sinai, which was affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, had been part of Cleveland’s reputation for medical excellence and innovation.
Mt. Sinai became one of the largest grantmaking foundations to emerge during this pivotal era, as hospital leadership sold the institution’s operating assets in 1996 to position the Mt. Sinai Health Care
System (Mt. Sinai, Richmond Heights and Laurelwood Hospitals, as well as several outpatient facilities) to successfully compete with University Hospitals and Cleveland Clinic, with the Mt. Sinai Medical Center as the flagship tertiary care center of the new system.
The Mt. Sinai Health Foundation has since become a leading health philanthropy, distributing more than $150 million in its initial 27 years of grantmaking. The Foundation’s grantmaking focuses on four key areas where transformational change can be made across large populations: health of the Jewish community, health of the urban community, academic medicine and bioscience, and health policy.
Initiatives in recent years led by Mt. Sinai include backing the Greater Cleveland COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund to support those most impacted by the pandemic, advocating for an assault weapons ban following the tragic Pittsburgh synagogue mass shooting, and convening a public-private partnership to address lead poisoning in Cleveland.
