About Fletcher Allen Health Care

Fletcher Allen Health Care is both a community hospital and, in partnership with the University of Vermont, the state’s academic medical center.   It is our mission to improve the health of the people in the communities we serve by integrating patient care, education and research in a caring environment.

In its community hospital role, Fletcher Allen serves approximately 150,000 residents in Chittenden and Grand Isle counties and provides primary care services at nine Vermont sites.  The organization also offers free to the community a wide range of health, prevention and wellness programs, all of which help to limit the need for more expensive acute care.

Through a vital partnership, Fletcher Allen Health Care, the University of Vermont College of Medicine and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences form Vermont’s academic medical center – one of just 125 such centers in the country.  Together, these institutions are committed to helping improve our region’s quality of life with innovations in medicine and health care that arise from new knowledge and discovery.  Through its alliance with the University of Vermont, Fletcher Allen is able to provide the best patient care possible by bringing medical education and research to the bedside and doctor’s office.   

As a regional referral center, Fletcher Allen provides advanced-level care to a population of one million people throughout Vermont and northern New York.  The medical center extends beyond its three main campuses in the Burlington area to include more than 35 patient care sites and 100 outreach clinics, programs and services throughout the region.

Each of these responsibilities is equally important in fulfilling Fletcher Allen’s mission. 

Please use the links on the left to learn more about Fletcher Allen.

Patient Care

Serving a population of one million throughout Vermont and northern New York, Fletcher Allen provides a full range of services covering every major area of medicine.  The medical center averages more than a million patient visits each year, including inpatient, outpatient, emergency department and physician office visits.

Regional Network of Care

At Fletcher Allen, we understand that patients wish to have services close to home.  It is our responsibility to explore every opportunity to locate critical services close to the patients who need them whenever possible.  Through regional collaboration with hospitals and health care providers, Fletcher Allen:

• Offers advanced medical services throughout Vermont and northern New York.  Our providers travel to community hospitals to offer these specialized services close to the patient’s home.
• Provides kidney dialysis services in six Vermont counties.

• Through their NECLA (www.NECLA.org) affiliation, the laboratories at all 13 hospitals in the state operate a coordinated delivery system to support regional patients and providers by making sure that laboratory testing is performed as close to the patient as possible.  This ensures the fastest possible turn around times and continuity of outpatient and inpatient results in the medical record.  In addition Pathology and Laboratory Medicine maintains a statewide courier network that transports both samples and blood products where they are needed throughout the state.

• Links advanced expertise to 12 community hospitals with telemedicine technology.  Using two-way interactive video, telemedicine allows the patient, local provider and specialist to interact and develop a care plan, without having to transfer the patient to a more specialized care center.
• Operates a critical care inter-hospital ambulance service, which transports adult and pediatric patients requiring critical care from community hospitals to the main campus in Burlington.

Specialized Services

Fletcher Allen Health Care offers tertiary-level care – some of the most specialized and highly technical health care services available.  Following are just a few examples of the services we provide to the region.

• Level I Trauma Center: As the only Level I Trauma Center in Vermont, Fletcher Allen offers the region advanced technology and techniques to care for the most seriously ill and injured pediatric and adult patients.  Fletcher Allen was the first organization in the United States to be verified as a Level I Trauma Center for both children and adults. 
• Cardiac Care Services: Over the past 50 years, Fletcher Allen Health Care has provided advanced cardiac care to patients throughout the region, performing thousands of heart surgeries and cardiac catheterizations.  Our electrophysiology and cardiac rehabilitation programs are nationally renowned. 
• The Vermont Cancer Center at the University of Vermont/Fletcher Allen: One of 39 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, the Vermont Cancer Center coordinates multidisciplinary approaches to cancer research, prevention, patient care, and community education.  
• The Breast Care Center: Fletcher Allen’s Breast Care Center offers patients a coordinated team approach, where specialists located in various areas of the medical center – from radiologists to surgeons to psychologists to breast health specialists – wrap care around the patient in one location.  Our center has served as a model for programs at other medical centers.   
• Imaging: With some of the most advanced equipment available to obtain images of even the smallest details in the human body, and the experts to interpret the images, Fletcher Allen is a regional leader in diagnosing and treating the most complex conditions. 
• Women’s Health: From general obstetrical and gynecological care to high-end obstetrical ultrasound, from infertility treatment to women’s cancer care, Fletcher Allen offers women a full-range of health and wellness services in a respectful, caring and safe environment. 
• Neonatal Intensive Care: The Vermont Children’s Hospital’s Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, offers one of the highest levels of intensive care for critically ill and premature infants.  The unit is located immediately next to the Birthing Center, ensuring quick transport of Fletcher Allen’s tiniest patients in critical care situations. 
• Advanced Pediatric Care: The Vermont Children’s Hospital includes a Children’s Specialty Center, providing centralized and convenient access to our pediatric specialists.  Offering family-centered care in 16 different specialty areas, Vermont Children’s treats a full range of pediatric medical conditions. 
• Psychiatry:  Offering inpatient, partial hospital and outpatient psychiatry services, Fletcher Allen is leading the way nationally on research into substance abuse, memory disorders and childhood mental illness. 
• Neurological Surgery:  Fletcher Allen’s Center for Neurological Surgery is dedicated to providing the most up-to-date and effective treatment for disease and injury of the brain, spine and peripheral nerves. 
• Orthopaedics: Our orthopaedics program is recognized regionally and nationally for its treatment of spine, joints, and hands as well as injuries related to sports and trauma. 
• Stroke Care: Fletcher Allen provides comprehensive care for patients who have experienced a stroke.  Our Acute Stroke Intervention Team is a stand-by rapid response team available 24/7 for stroke emergencies.  Following a stroke, patients are helped to recovery by our inpatient rehabilitation services.  
• The General Clinical Research Center at Fletcher Allen/University of Vermont:  The General Clinical Research Center at Fletcher Allen/University of Vermont is one of 78 in the country and the only one in northern New England; here, researchers are pioneering treatments for heart disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, ALS, and many other diseases. 

Back to top

Education

As an academic medical center, we have the special responsibility of educating the next generation of doctors, nurses and allied health professionals.  The vast majority of Fletcher Allen doctors not only take care of patients, they also teach physicians-in-training through their positions as members of the University of Vermont College of Medicine faculty; there are also a number of Fletcher Allen nurses and allied health professionals who teach at the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Fletcher Allen Health Care serves as the training site for the approximately 400 medical students and 550 nursing and allied health students who attend the University of Vermont. Additionally, 280 residents train at the academic medical center. Residents are physicians who after graduating from medical school are completing the additional training necessary to become fully licensed doctors and achieve certification to practice a medical specialty such as pediatrics, surgery or cardiology.  Patients benefit from having residents, medical students and nursing and allied health students as part of their care team.  These individuals, through their studies and training regimen, help to ensure that patients receive the highest quality care and the most advanced treatments available.

In addition, a significant number of the excellent health professionals who practice in the region received or continue to receive training at this academic medical center.  For instance:

• The College of Nursing and Health Sciences offers the only Vermont program for advanced practice nurses, such as nurse practitioners and clinical nurse specialists.
• Forty percent of the physicians in Vermont either graduated from the University of Vermont and/or trained at Fletcher Allen.
• Our physicians regularly share their expertise with other doctors in the region through educational sessions called Grand Rounds and through Continuing Medical Education courses.  These learning opportunities help doctors – often located in rural areas – to maintain, develop, or increase their knowledge and skills.

Back to top

Research

A core mission of the academic medical center is to advance medical knowledge through research, so in addition to teaching and training, many of our physicians, nurses and other providers engage in biomedical research, seeking new cures and more effective treatments.

The University of Vermont is nationally and internationally recognized for its biomedical research activities, and extramural funding for research has doubled in the last five years. In addition, the College of Medicine is ranked in the top third of medical schools for research grants per faculty member.

The University and Fletcher Allen are home to the Vermont Cancer Center, one of only 39 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers, and also to a National Institutes of Health General Clinical Research Center, making Vermont one of only 19 states with both.

There are over 1,000 active clinical trials at the University of Vermont and Fletcher Allen. Clinical trials are research studies conducted with people who volunteer to take part. Each study answers scientific questions and tries to find better ways to prevent, screen for, diagnose, or treat a disease.

This active research program has a direct benefit to patients at Fletcher Allen, who have access to the latest treatments and technology and who are cared for by some of the leading experts in their field. In addition to the full range of patient care services, Fletcher Allen can also offer intensive, specialized services at the cutting edge of medical innovation and technology.

Back to top

Benefiting the Community

Fletcher Allen lives its mission to "improve the health of the people in the communities it serves" by reaching out to help people take care of their health. These efforts include:

Community Wellness and Education

Fletcher Allen offers numerous free health education classes, in which health professionals provide information on a variety of topics.   Many other health and wellness programs offered throughout the year serve as a valuable resource to our community, ranging from car seat safety checks to free osteoporosis screenings, from tobacco cessation classes to programs to help educate consumers how to control their prescription drug costs.

Frymoyer Community Health Resource Center

Patients, families and the public are more interested than ever in gaining access to the latest health information available.  The Frymoyer Community Health Resource Center at Fletcher Allen offers the community easy, free, guided access to the best information about health and medicine.

Collaborative Efforts

Fletcher Allen partners with other groups to help meet the needs of the community.

• Fletcher Allen, the United Way and the Champlain Initiative conduct a periodic survey of 34 towns in Chittenden and surrounding counties to determine community and health care needs. This assessment helps guide each of these organization’s priorities.
• Fletcher Allen and the University of Vermont College of Medicine has partnered with the Howard Center for Human Services to create and operate Vermont’s first methadone clinic – an addictions treatment program in Burlington – which filled to capacity within months of opening.
• Fletcher Allen’s Elder Care Services established a Community Elder Care Council – a group composed of 14 representatives from local non-profit agencies, which helps to prioritize elder care issues in the community and focus on strategies to address them.

Back to top