HBO’s One South: Portrait of a Psych Unit, Netflix’s Lenox Hill, and National Geographic’s The First Wave were all filmed in hospitals run by Northwell Health — the largest health care system in New York that’s launching its own film and TV production studio.
The medical genre on big and small screens has gained massive popularity over the past few years, so it’s unsurprising that Northwell Health wants some of the revenue, editorial control, and branding opportunities, says Alex Weprin, who covers media and business for The Hollywood Reporter.
Consent is tricky when it comes to graphic surgical scenes, he explains, and producers must triple-check that on-camera patients, doctors, and other hospital professionals have given explicit permission.
“There may be a limited release where maybe they agree to be interviewed, but their private medical information cannot be shown. And there have actually been lawsuits brought by the Department of Health and Human Services when some of these shows have violated those agreements. So it is a really complicated thing.”
As for the mechanics of shooting, cameras have gotten smaller and higher quality, and there’s no elaborate setup with lots of lights and cables, Weprin says. Producers work on the fly and within the constraints of the hospitals, which aren’t built for Hollywood gear.
Doctors and nurses have mixed feelings about these films, documentaries, and TV series. “They want to focus on providing medical care, and having a camera crew there, even if they are professional, it can be distracting. It can interfere with that. There are probably others … where the publicity of getting out in front of the camera, maybe they think it could be beneficial for their careers.”
This production goes beyond New York as well. “The fact that the medical documentary genre is so popular on a lot of these streaming platforms, [it] does make me think that you're going to see more of them across the country and other hospitals and in rural hospitals, in hospitals in smaller cities. It just makes sense that there's a lot of different ways to approach this,” Weprin says.