Since its founding, Yale New Haven Hospital has been a major contributor to the advances in medicine, science and technology. Many of Yale New Haven Hospital's achievements involve significant "firsts" in the field of medicine.
| 1813 | Dr. Eli Ives presents the country's first pediatric course at Yale Medical College |
| 1826 | General Hospital Society of Connecticut is established; Connecticut's first and the nation's fourth voluntary hospital |
| 1833 | First permanent hospital building opens |
| 1862 | U.S. Government leases hospital during the Civil War, renaming it Knight U.S. Army General Hospital |
| 1871 | New Haven Dispensary opens as city's first outpatient clinic |
| 1873 | New Haven Hospital opens the Connecticut Training School, one of the nation's first three nursing schools |
| 1884 | Name of State Hospital changes to New Haven Hospital |
| 1896 | Grace School of Nursing founded |
| Arthur Wright produces first X-ray in the U.S. at Yale University | |
| 1913 | First formal agreement with Yale School of Medicine |
| 1933 | Established one of the first organized hospital volunteer departments in the country |
| 1942 | First successful clinical use of penicillin in U.S |
| First use of chemotherapy as a cancer treatment in the U.S. | |
| 1945 | Grace Hospital merges with New Haven Hospital to form Grace-New Haven Hospital |
| 1946 | First U.S. hospital to allow healthy newborns to stay in rooms with mothers |
| 1947 | Opens the rheumatic fever-cardiac clinic, one of the nation's first regional children's heart centers |
| 1949 | Developed first artificial heart pump in the U.S. |
| First U.S. hospital to introduce natural childbirth as a general service for all obstetrical patients | |
| 1952 | First cornea transplant in Connecticut |
| 1954 | First high energy radiation treatment unit in Connecticut |
| 1956 | First open heart surgery in Connecticut |
| 1957 | First hospital to use fetal heart monitoring |
| First peritoneal dialysis in Connecticut | |
| 1958 | First hemodialysis in Connecticut |
| First kidney biopsy in Connecticut | |
| 1959 | Discovery of melatonin |
| 1960 | World's first intensive care unit for newborns |
| 1963 | First linear accelerator for cancer treatment in Connecticut |
| 1965 | Grace-New Haven Hospital becomes Yale New Haven Hospital |
| 1966 | Phrenic nerve pacemaker allows quadriplegics to breathe without a respirator |
| 1967 | First kidney transplant in Connecticut |
| 1972 | First hospital-based newborn screening program for sickle cell anemia in the U.S. |
| 1975 | Lyme disease identified and named |
| 1976 | First in Connecticut to treat cancer with photons and electrons |
| 1979 | First insulin infusion pump for diabetes |
| 1982 | First AIDS clinic in Connecticut |
| 1983 | First liver transplant in Connecticut |
| First in vitro fertilization birth in New England | |
| 1984 | First heart transplant in Connecticut |
| First skin bank in New England | |
| 1985 | First fetal cardiovascular center in the U.S. |
| First hospital-based inpatient child psychiatric unit in Connecticut | |
| 1987 | First use of photopheresis in Connecticut |
| 1988 | First bone marrow transplant in Connecticut |
| First heart-lung transplant in Connecticut | |
| 1989 | First pancreas transplant in Connecticut |
| 1990 | First single lung transplant in Connecticut |
| 1991 | First in Connecticut to use Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) life support system |
| 1992 | First heart transplant from an unmatched donor in Connecticut |
| 1993 | First in Connecticut to use non-invasive stereotactic breast biopsy |
| Yale New Haven Children's Hospital becomes first full-service children's hospital in Connecticut | |
| 1995 | First hospital in Connecticut to launch an Internet website, coinciding with the Special Olympic World games being held in New Haven |
| 1997 | First in Connecticut to use inhaled nitric oxide to treat infants with pulmonary hypertension |
| First documented heart transplants of adult identical twins, one in 1992, second in 1997 | |
| 1998 | First patient in New England discharged with a left ventricular assist device |
| 2003 | First in New England to transplant a Jarvik2000 ventricular assist device into a failing heart |
| 2007 | First in Connecticut to perform split-liver transplants and living-donor liver transplants |
| 2008 | First in Connecticut to perform an "invisible incision" appendectomy, know as "Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES)," in which surgery is performed through the body's natural openings |
| 2017 | First in Connecticut to perform an 18-patient linked living donor swap, one of the largest at one center in the United States |
