Houston’s Texas Medical Center has been formally recognized as the world’s largest medical complex, a title the 1,345-acre campus has long claimed for itself.
The designation came Sept. 21 from World Record Academy, a record-certifying registry. TMC, a 21-hospital system, has billed itself as the “largest medical complex in the world” for years, so the recognition formalizes a superlative already central to its branding.
Texas Medical Center is home to more than 60 member institutions, including the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston Methodist Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.
The campus employs more than 120,000 people, holds about 10,000 patient beds and logs 10 million patient encounters a year, according to Texas Medical Center. Its roughly 50 million developed square feet make it the eighth-largest business district in the U.S., and TMC estimates its annual economic output at $25 billion.
Clinicians there perform a surgery every three minutes — more than 175,000 a year — and deliver upward of 25,000 babies annually.
The recognition lands as TMC pours billions of dollars into expansion, including the 37-acre TMC Helix Park research campus and its adjacent life-sciences development.
