In the Bassett Healthcare Network, we are committed to helping the population we serve and our communities achieve optimum health and enjoy the best quality of life possible. We accomplish this through an innovative and unique health care system that connects comprehensive care and services to people living throughout Central New York.
The hub of our network is Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, which, in addition to traditional hospital-based care such as a birthing center and inpatient medical and surgical care, also offers sophisticated outpatient diagnostic and treatment capabilities.
Bassett Medical Center is where people in the region come for advanced care, such as: open-heart surgery, daVinci robot-assisted surgery, specialized cancer treatment, advanced vascular care, trauma care, neurosurgery, and advanced orthopedic and spine care. This nationally recognized tertiary care hospital houses the Bassett Heart Care Institute and the Bassett Cancer Institute.
The Bassett Medical Group is comprised of a full-time, salaried staff numbering more than 400 physicians and other advanced practice clinicians who provide primary and specialty care at the Bassett Clinic and staff Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown. In the region, the Bassett Medical Group also staffs over two dozen community-based primary care centers throughout eight counties. Bassetts school-based health centers across four counties provide medical, mental health, and preventive dental care to children who might otherwise never have the chance to receive this care.
Our network also connects people in the region to a multitude of specialists who provide technical expertise and skills in areas typically found only in big cities. Many of these specialists travel to see patients at Bassett affiliated community hospitals as well as at specialty campuses in Herkimer, Oneonta, and Hartwick Seminary. The specialty services offered range from cardiology, cancer, and orthopedic care to ear, nose and throat, vascular care, dermatology, and more. In addition, a variety of outpatient diagnostic and surgical procedures are available on these specialty campuses as a convenience to patients. Our clinicians and care teams in Cooperstown and in the region, in combination with the networks community-based health centers, provide care to thousands of people every year.
In addition to Bassett Medical Center, Bassett Healthcare Network has four area community hospitals: Cobleskill Regional Hospital, OConnor Hospital in Delhi, Little Falls Hospital, and A.O. Fox Hospital in Oneonta provide acute inpatient care and 24-7 emergency care. These hospitals also have the latest in diagnostic equipment such as MRI and CAT scan units. A fifth hospital, A.O. Fox Hospital - Tri-Town Campus in Sidney provides emergency care as well as laboratory and radiology services. A number of Bassett specialists see patients at the specialty services clinic on the Tri-Town campus.
We are also well-positioned to take care of the continuum of care needs for the population served by Bassett Healthcare Network. Beyond hospital-based care and the outpatient care provided in the regional health centers, our network also includes At Home Care, an entity that provides services such as nursing and physical therapy for people in their home. First Community Care of Bassett is a medical supply company that provides medical equipment, supplies, and prescription treatments, such as the oxygenneeded by many individuals utilizing home-based care.
Should a community resident need short-stay rehabilitation, the Bassett Healthcare Network offers services at the A.O. Fox Nursing Home in Oneonta, Cobleskill Regional Hospital, Little Falls Hospital, OConnor Hospital in Delhi, and at Valley Health Services(VHS) in Herkimer. Long-term care services are available at the A.O. Fox Nursing Homeand at VHS- whichalso offers seniors the opportunity to retain their independence as long as possible at Valley Residential Services, Herkimer Countys only assisted-living facility.
As a teaching hospital and medical school campus affiliated with Columbia Universitys College of Physicians and Surgeons, and through a nationally renowned Research Institute, Bassett is continually advancing its missions of patient care, teaching and research, always anticipating and developing to meet the evolving needs of the people and communities in the region we serve.
In keeping with the direction of health care today, Bassett maintains a strong commitment to population and community health improvement. The Bassett Research Institutes Center for Rural Community Health and New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH) conducts clinical research and population studies, as well as provide assessment of health services, occupational challenges, and other public health issues.
'Is it visionary to think of the hospital of the future and perhaps the not very distant future as a socially progressive health center?' Dr. George Miner Mackenzie, Director, The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, 1929-1947
The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital (doing business as Bassett Medical Center) is named in honor of a physician who devoted herself generously for many years to the sick and unfortunate of Cooperstown and the surrounding region.
Among Dr. Bassett 's friends and patients was American businessman Edward Severin Clark. He had great admiration for her. According to anecdote, he heard her express a wish for a laboratory to provide scientific data with which she and the other Cooperstown practitioners could better care for their patients. Mr. Clark granted her wish, building not only a laboratory, but a fully-equipped 100-bed fieldstone hospital building. Named 'The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital,' it was meant as a living memorial to Dr. Bassett.
The public opening of the hospital came in June 1922, with Dr. Bassett serving as chief-of-staff. Tragically, she died of a stroke at home in October of that year. Mr. Clark directed that the light in the cupola be lit every night in memory of her.
Soon after Dr. Bassett's death, the hospital began struggling to keep its doors open. The 100-bed hospital proved too large for the small village and its local practitioners to support, and the facility closed in 1925.
As the story is told, one day, several senior residents at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City were discussing their hopes to work in a rural hospital. A junior resident, Dr. Henry S. F. Cooper, overheard their conversation and mentioned that he knew of a vacant, state-of-the-art 100-bed hospital in Cooperstown, New York. Dr. Cooper was a descendant of Judge William Cooper, who had founded the village of Cooperstown in 1787.
The residents were intrigued. Within minutes, Dr. Cooper had crossed the street and was sitting in the home of Stephen C. Clark, Sr., who had become interested in the empty hospital his brother Edward had built. Dr. Cooper suggested the idea of reopening the Cooperstown hospital, with Mr. Clark's support.
Dr. Mackenzie envisioned an ideal rural hospital dedicated to patient care, education, and research, where the practicing physicians were full-time and salaried. His guiding philosophy was to create the strengths of a university hospital in a rural region. His vision, which shaped the hospital's original mission, continues at Bassett today.
'Construction at The Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown of proposed facilities for the critical administration of total-body radiation to man, should expedite the clinical development of this promising field.' Editorial, The New England Journal of Medicine, September 12, 1957
After Dr. Mackenzie's retirement in 1947, Stephen C. Clark again played an essential role in the hospital's development. He personally recruited Dr. James Bordley III from Johns Hopkins University to head Bassett Hospital.
Under Dr. Bordley's leadership, education and medical research began to grow, as did Bassett's reputation for innovation and leadership in rural medicine. Dr. Bordley expanded Bassett's education programs to include nurses, and in response to nationwide nursing shortages, Bassett initiated undergraduate nursing education and affiliations.
Research at Bassett boomed in the 1950s with the award of numerous grants and the assembly of a pioneering group of researchers, including Dr. Joseph W. Ferrebee, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas, Dr. Theodore Peters, Jr., and Dr. David A. Blumenstock. In 1956, these Bassett physicians completed the first bone marrow transplant in history. The bone marrow from a healthy twin was transfused to a twin with leukemia, after whole body radiation had wiped out the sick twin's malignant leukemia cells. Landmark work in heart and lung transplantation was also done at Bassett during this period. In 1990, Dr. E. Donnall Thomas received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his pioneering transplantation work, which has led to the successful treatment of leukemia.
The 1960s brought the opening of the Bassett Research Institute and in 1967, ground was broken for a new inpatient building that doubled the number of hospital beds. Dr. Bordley's successor, Dr. Charles Ashley, undertook significant expansions in staff, buildings, specialty services and nurse-staffed health centers. During his directorship, the number of outpatient visits increased from 60,000 to 140,000 per year and the overall Bassett staff tripled from 400 to 1,200. In 1973, the first Bassett nurse practitioner was established in Edmeston and in 1978, a second community health center opened in Cherry Valley. This innovative solution to the shortage of physicians in rural areas marked the beginning of Bassett's regional health center network.
Farmsafe, the predecessor to the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH) was established in 1980 to reduce the incidence of farm-related injuries and illnesses in the region. At the same time, the Bassett Research Institute began conducting some of the first major population studies of rural Americans.
This is a great example of a way to deliver health care in a challenging, rural environment with a widespread population with significant health care needs. Dennis Whalen, President of the Healthcare Association of New York State
During the period from the mid-1980s to 2014, Bassett Hospital experienced remarkable growth and change under the leadership of its longest serving president, Dr. William F. Streck, who was appointed acting director in 1984 and formally assumed leadership of Bassett in 1985. He announced his retirement in July of 2014.
During Dr. Strecks tenure, the organization transitioned from a group practice of 70 physicians in Cooperstown, into a health care delivery system employing more than 400 providers. Bassett Healthcare Network now serves eight counties across 5,600 square miles, logging more than 700,000 outpatient visits a year, and employing 5,000 staff. As a result, the Bassett Healthcare Network, a major economic engine for the region, remains a national leader in rural health care delivery.
Over three decades, Dr. Streck and his management team artfully maneuvered Bassetts growth, strategically expanding access to community-based primary and specialty care as well as acute care at affiliated hospitals in upstate New York. In Cooperstown, the Bassett Clinic opened its doors in 1992, providing a spacious and inviting primary and specialty care center. The Louis Busch Hager Cancer Center is located within the Bassett Clinic. The primary care network has expanded to over 40 community-based health centers and 20 school-based health centers.
Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown added a birthing center and special care units, and expanded its dialysis and intensive care units. Advanced cardiac care arrived in the region with the opening of the Bassett Heart Care Institute (BHCI) in 2003. Bassett Medical Center is also a designated Trauma Center and Stroke Center.
In 2018, after a few years of retirement and at the request of the board of directors, Dr. Streck returned to serve as the interim president and CEO of Bassett Healthcare Network to lead the organization through another period of reorganization and to help a nationwide search for the networks next leader.
Bassett Healthcare Network now includes five hospitals: Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, O'Connor Hospital in Delhi, Cobleskill Regional Hospital in Schoharie County, Little Falls Hospital in Herkimer County, and A.O. Fox Hospital in Oneonta, as well as a satellite emergency department in Delaware County, A.O. Fox Hospital -Tri-Town Campus.
The research mission of Bassett continues to enrich the organization. In 1985, Dr. Streck brought focus to this mission with the formal establishment of the Bassett Research Institute. Over the last 30 years, research gradually transformed to meld successfully into the changing goals of Bassett and the evolution of the health care system. As population health emerged as a national interest, Bassetts New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health and the Research Institutes Center for Rural Community Health undertook population and health-system studies. That work continues today.
The quality of Bassetts medical education programs and its commitment to the academic mission remain high. Bassett maintains affiliations with a number of medical, nursing and allied health programs and schools, all of which help attract clinicians to this rural region. The Columbia-Bassett Medical School a hybrid program with an innovative curriculum and a course of studies focusing on ethics, evidenced-based medicine, health care systems, integration, and leadership and business management was established in 2009 as a partnership between Bassett and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
On July 13, 2020, Bassett Healthcare Network welcomed its newest president and CEO, Tommy Ibrahim, MD, MHA. Dr. Ibrahim is the fifth physician to assume leadership of the health system since its founding nearly 100 years ago. Dr. Ibrahim succeeds Dr. Streck who returned to lead the organization on an interim basis in 2018 while the network board of directors conducted a search to find a new CEO to help advance the health systems missions.
Prior to assuming leadership of the Bassett network, Dr. Ibrahim held leadership positions within the health care industry for 14 years, including as Executive Vice President and Chief Physician Executive for Integris Health System, a Top 25 health care system according to U.S. News & World Report, and the largest not-for-profit health care system in Oklahoma.
I am humbled to join the Bassett family and to follow in the footsteps of the visionary leaders that have shaped the rich and historic legacy of this wonderful health system, said Dr. Ibrahim. Grounded in innovation and the advancement of scientific research and evidence-based practice, Bassett has repeatedly demonstrated what it means to be a national leader in health care, through generations of contributions and medical firsts and as the cornerstone of patient care in Central New York.
I look forward to locking arms with all of our board members, leaders, physicians, clinicians, and all of our 5,000 caregivers across the network to build upon the successes of the past in creating a strong and prosperous future in which Bassetts mission, vision, and values resonate throughout the communities we are privileged to serve.