Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the largest hospital in Missouri and the largest private employer in the St. Louis region, is an affiliated teaching hospital of Washington University School of Medicine, boasting a 1,800-member medical staff. It was the first adult hospital in Missouri certified as a Magnet hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and U.S. News & World Report ranked it the No. 1 hospital in St. Louis and Missouri in its 2026-2027 “Best Hospitals” rankings. Formed by the 1996 merger of Barnes Hospital, which opened in 1914 as one of the first medical teaching centers in the U.S., and The Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, which opened in 1902 to serve the city’s growing immigrant population, Barnes-Jewish is a member of BJC HealthCare, one of the nation’s largest health care organizations. Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital are among the leading recipients of National Institutes of Health research funding, work that has produced a string of clinical firsts, including the world’s first double-lung transplant within a program that has now completed more than 800 lung transplants. Washington University heart surgeons at Barnes-Jewish developed robotic heart surgery, off-pump beating-heart surgery and the Cox Maze procedure for atrial fibrillation, while the hospital’s surgeons also performed the world’s first laparoscopic kidney removal and later developed the mini-nephrectomy procedure for living donors. In 2003, a Washington University surgeon performed the first U.S. surgery to restore voice to a patient using an artificial larynx, and in 2005 Barnes-Jewish surgeons performed the first U.S. surgery to relocate a salivary gland to restore moisture to a tear duct. The hospital’s community outreach includes a refugee health department that assists patients in 33 languages and dialects, the “AWARE” program for domestic violence victims, and more than 165 community education events annually.
