In East Tennessee, the impact of a hospital can be measured in many ways. It’s there in the care delivered at the bedside, the people who keep a hospital running and the families whose livelihoods are connected to the work happening inside its walls.

At UT Medical, that impact reaches across a 21-county region.

According to UT Medical’s 2025 Community Benefit Report, the health system generates an estimated $3.6 billion in annual, regional economic impact. That figure includes $1.1 billion in salaries and benefits and reflects the work of more than 8,000 team members whose jobs support families and communities throughout East Tennessee.

Those numbers are large, but their meaning is local.

A hospital job can be a career close to home. A training program can create a path into a high-demand profession. A paycheck earned at a hospital can move through the community in the form of groceries, housing, childcare and other everyday needs. And when a health system invests in its workforce, that investment can help strengthen the region’s ability to care for patients for years to come.

For UT Medical, workforce development is one part of that broader role. The health system currently supports 30 graduate medical training programs, helping prepare health care professionals for the next stage of their careers. It has also helped nearly 100 nurses graduate through its BSN Scholars Program and enter the workforce.

Those programs matter because communities depend on a steady pipeline of trained health care professionals. They also show how a hospital’s role as an employer can extend beyond the jobs it provides today to the workforce it is helping build for tomorrow.

The impact does not stop with employment and training. UT Medical reported $192 million in patient assistance funds in its 2025 Community Benefit Report, along with $55 million in uncompensated and charity care. Those investments reflect another side of a hospital’s economic role: supporting access to care for people who may be facing financial barriers while continuing to meet the needs of the broader community.

That combination of care, employment and investment makes hospitals more than places people go when they are sick. In many communities, they are among the institutions that help keep the local economy moving.

Hospital employees live nearby. Their training programs help create career pathways. Their salaries support families and communities. Their community benefit investments help support patients who need care. And their continued presence can give communities a stronger foundation for the future.

For a region as broad as East Tennessee, that kind of impact can reach far beyond a single campus. The more than 8,000 people who make up UT Medical’s workforce represent thousands of individual stories: people building careers, supporting families and contributing to the places they call home. The health care professionals moving through training programs represent the next generation of care. The patients receiving assistance represent neighbors who may be able to access needed services during a difficult time.

Put together, those stories give shape to a $3.6 billion figure and demonstrate what economic impact looks like when it becomes personal. It looks like a nurse beginning a career. A health care professional training to serve patients. A family supported by a stable job. A patient receiving help when the cost of care feels out of reach. A community with an institution invested not only in its health, but in its ability to grow and thrive.

That is what it means to be here for every future: every career taking shape, every family building a life, every patient who needs support and every East Tennessee community counting on a strong local health care system.

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