In July 2009, the Associated Medical Schools of New York (AMSNY), a statewide consortium of New York’s public and private medical schools, retained the services of Tripp Umbach, a private research organization, to conduct a study on the economic, research, community and social benefits of the State’s academic medical centers (the fifteen medical schools and their primary hospital affiliates). The purpose of this study is to measure and communicate the tremendous, multidimensional value that the academic medical centers bring to the State overall, as well as to the communities in which they are located.

This report measures:

• The direct and indirect economic impact stemming from the spending of New York State’s academic medical centers. They fall within the following categories:
  • Spending by staff
  • Spending by physicians
  • Spending by medical residents
  • Spending of medical and other health sciences students;
  • Spending by patients (external to the hospital);
  • Spending by visitors; and
  • Direct, first-round, expenditures re-circulate through the economy in successive rounds of re-spending. The end result is a multiplied economic impact that is a direct result of the academic medical center’s presence and their spending patterns. For this statewide study, the multiplier used is 2.3. This means that each dollar spent by these individual organizations fuels an additional spending of $1.30 in the State by other organizations.
• The direct and indirect employment impact generated from operations of New York State’s academic medical centers includes individuals who work directly for these institutions. Indirect employment is the additional jobs created as a result of the institutions economic impact. Local companies that provide goods and services to an institution increase their number of employees as purchasing increases thus creating a employment multiplier. In this study, the employment multiplier used is 1.8.
•  The tax revenue impact of New York State’s academic medical centers including income, sales, corporate income and capital stock/franchise taxes.