Chancellor shares data on economic impact of Ohio’s academic health-care industry

May 31, 2012 | News, UToday
By Meghan Cunningham



The Ohio Board of Regents last week learned about the $42.6 billion economic impact the state’s medical colleges and teaching hospitals had on Ohio in 2011.

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UT chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs, and dean of the College of Medicine and Life Sciences, gave the hourlong presentation titled “Statewide and National Perspectives on Medical Education” at the board’s May meeting at Lorain County Community College.

Gold, who serves as chair of the Ohio Council of Medical School Deans that commissioned the report, said it is important for state leaders to understand the significance of the academic health-care industry.

“Only New York state has an academic health industry with a greater economic impact on its home state than Ohio, and that impact is growing,” Gold said. “The $42.6 billion impact in 2011 is an increase of more than $5 billion since the study was last conducted in 2007.”

The Ohio Council of Medical School Deans commissions economic impact studies every five years, with similar studies completed in 2007 and 2002. The firm TrippUmbach recently finished the 2012 study with 2011 data to show medical schools’ impact on the economy, jobs, tax revenue and other key economic metrics.

The report shows that a growing number of Ohio jobs also are tied to the academic health-care industry with more than 463,000 full-time equivalent positions in 2011, an increase of more than 38,000 in the last five years.

And the state’s medical schools and teaching hospitals have a more than $1.8 billion impact on total state tax revenue, also an increase of nearly $300 million since 2007.

The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences and its teaching hospitals alone had an economic impact of $5.6 billion on Ohio last year, and more than 57,000 full-time equivalent jobs are tied to the college and its teaching hospitals.

The state’s academic health-care industry also is responsible for attracting millions of dollars in research grant funding, and teaching hospitals provide much of the country’s uncompensated care, Gold said.

Gold has been invited to present the information to the Toledo City Council’s Economic Development Committee.

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