Early years The institution was founded in 1911 as the
New Utrecht Dispensary. It began operation on Sunday, June 11, 1911, at 1275 Thirty-seventh Street, and opened to the public the following day, when it treated ten patients. From the start, it included a dental clinic. In its first six months, it treated over 2,000 patients. The dispensary's leadership raises funds in 1913 for what was then a separate institution, Zion Hospital of Bath Beach. However, by March 1914, the New Utrech Dispensary had purchased a property on 36th Street for developing its own hospital and started construction plans. The dispensary received a hospital charter in 1916. Meanwhile, Zion Hospital proceed apace, and was organized and incorporated by 1915, Their building was at 2140 Cropsey Avenue, closeby to the other major Jewish community organizations of Bath Beach, the
YMHA, YWHA, and the Free Loan Association. In 1918, the dispensary, still at its original location, began merger talks with Zion Hospital. Several small dispensaries merged with Utrecht in 1919. The organization changed its name to Israel Hospital of Brooklyn on April 23, 1919. The organization operated at 1246 Forty-second Street at that time. In early 1920, the new hospital building was under construction, at a new location, Tenth Avenue and Forty-eight Street; that building is still part of the Maimonides campus, though partially obscured by new construction, and serves as the hospital administration building. By midyear, the previously abandoned merger was completed, and the name later shortened to Israel-Zion Hospital, though the legal name did not. Maimonides Medical Center was formed as a result of the merger of United Israel Zion Hospital and Beth Moses Hospital in 1947. The institution was named after Rabbi
Moshe ben Maimon, a 12th-century Jewish philosopher and doctor.
Expansion The Maimonides Medical Center expanded its emergency department in 1997 with the opening of the
Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Emergency Center. In September 2007, construction started on space in a new building at the corner of 48th Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway. There are two wings, the main differences being in the severity of patients seen. In 2015 Maimonides broke ground on 3.4 million square feet of medical office space to allow patients to visit an array of health care providers in the same building.
Affiliation In February 2013, Maimonides Medical Center, the
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, and
Montefiore Medical Center signed an affiliation agreement that made Maimonides a university hospital and the Brooklyn campus of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In July 2021, Maimonides Medical Center announced an affiliation with
New York Community Hospital, fully expanding a partnership that began with a clinical services agreement in 2018. Maimonides Medical Center will co-operate the smaller, 134-bed hospital. ==Innovations==