NYs largest private employer, Northwell Health, has gone Hollywood with its own studio

New York’s largest hospital system is now moonlighting as a television studio.Northwell Health, which is also the state’s biggest private employer, has launched Northwell Studio — a Long Island production facility now developing scripted and docu-style medical shows.Michael Dowling, Northwell’s CEO, told The Post he wants to capture the public fascination with shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” — but also raise the profile of the 21 hospitals owned by the company, and even attract talent in a way other medical providers can’t.“Now, if you’re thinking of a movie studio, what do they do? They create a building, they create a situation, and then they have actors and actresses performing,” Dowling explained.

“But I have the real thing in the real world.” His company also already has six Emmys, for two hit Netflix shows that were made with outside production companies.Now, Northwell is in the director’s seat.The beginning of Northwell’s rise to television fame began as hospitals were barraged with sick patients in the early days of COVID.The healthcare network had already given access to an outside crew in 2018, when they began filming “Lenox Hill,” a Netflix docuseries following four doctors at the Upper East Side hospital of the same name.But when the pandemic hit in March 2020 and hospitals forbade even family members from visiting loved ones, Dowling agreed to open one of Northwell’s hospitals, Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens, to a handful of documentary crew members for five months.

That team shot more than 850 hours of film and turned it into the Emmy Award-winning documentary “First Wave.”“During Covid … we allowed a documentary crew into one of our top hospitals… to film what went on every day in the hospital,” Dowling said.“And one of the things that people don’t fully appreciate all the time is what health care staff do each and every day.”Northwell’s New Hyde Park studio, which was announced ...