Last year, Emory Healthcare clinicians provided more than $72 million in charity care for patients who had no insurance, not even Medicaid or Medicare. Charity care is just one example of health care-related community investment that is valued at hundreds of millions of dollars and is described via patient stories in a report produced annually by Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center.

One of the doctors mentioned in this report describes his waiting room as a finger on the pulse of the local economy.

He knows that some patients sitting there are the lucky ones, car in the parking lot, insurance card in their pocket, food in the refrigerator. Others struggle—with sickness, longtime unemployment, inadequate resources to pay for rent or medicines. Still others, more each year, are dressed in clothes left over from when they had jobs, money, and health insurance, hoping their new situation is unapparent.  It's often not—and it doesn't matter. Emory's doctors don't know which patient is in which situation, only that they are here to help all their patients, and that they will provide each the same high-quality care.

Read the full report: Can-do Compassion: Community Benefits Report 2012