Founded in 1868, the sprawling Clara Maass Medical Center lies between the leafy environs of Branch Brook Park and the vibrant Silver Lake neighborhood. It was the first hospital in the United States to be named for a nurse, Clara Maass, an East Orange native who served during the Spanish-American War and earned global acclaim after she gave her life participating in studies of yellow fever.

The facility, which was first known as the Newark German Hospital and is today part of the St. Barnabas Healthcare System, has served generations of township residents as well as patients from Hudson and Bergen counties. The hospital's staff, which includes more than 70o physicians, serves about 19,000 patients a year through its various "centers of excellence", or specialized medical departments.