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Facts at a Glance

Lobby in the NIH Clinical Center

The Clinical Center consists of two main facilities:

The original Warren Grant Magnuson Clinical Center is a 14-story, 2.5-million-square-feet building made from seven million bricks, with more than 5,000 rooms, nine miles of corridor, 15 outpatient clinics and a Department of Laboratory Medicine housed in a space the size of a football field. The 870,000-square-foot Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center has 200 inpatient beds and 93 day-hospital stations. Groundbreaking for a new Surgery Radiology and Lab Medicine wing occurred on May 16, 2023. The construction work is expected to finish in 2029.

Did you know the Clinical Center had:

  • 6,301 new patients in 2023
  • 3,110 inpatient admissions in 2023
  • 81,596 outpatient visits in 2023
  • An average hospital stay of 8.1 days in 2023
  • Around 1,280 credentialed physicians, dentists, and PhD researchers
  • 761 staff in nursing and patient care/support services
  • 703 allied health-care professionals, such as pharmacists, dietitians, medical technologists, imaging technologists, therapists, medical records and medical supply staff

As a research facility, only patients with the precise kind or stage of illness under investigation are admitted for treatment. There are no labor and delivery services and no other services common to community hospitals. Referral by a medical practitioner familiar with the patient's care is preferable. However, in certain instances, self-referral may be appropriate.

Areas of clinical study include:

  • Aging
  • Alcohol abuse and alcoholism
  • Allergy, arthritis and musculoskeletal and skin disease
  • Cancer
  • Child Health
  • Chronic pain
  • Deafness and other Communication disorders;
  • Dental and orofacial disorders
  • Diabetes
  • Digestive and kidney diseases
  • Eye disorders
  • Heart, lung, and blood diseases
  • Infectious diseases
  • Medical genetics
  • Mental health
  • Stroke

Additionally, the NIH Clinical Center is seeking to improve the visibility of minority health disparities research and other health disparities research as well as expand the role of such research in learning why some groups have disproportionately high rates of disease.