UW News

July 22, 2010

UW Medical Center ranks 12th in U.S. News Media Group’s 2010 edition of America’s Best Hospitals

UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine



University of Washington Medical Center is ranked among the nation’s top hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 edition of America’s Best Hospitals, and made the Best Hospitals “Honor Roll” for its breadth of excellence in specialty care. The 2010 edition is accessible now online and will be on sale at newsstands Tuesday, July 27.

UW Medical Center is part of the UW Medicine health system, which also includes Harborview Medical Center, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, UW Medicine Neighborhood Clinics, UW School of Medicine, UW Physicians, Airlift Northwest and the UW’s participation in the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance with Seattle Children’s and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. UW Medical Center has been rated among the leading hospitals in the United States since U.S. News began rankings in 1990.

Of the nation’s 4,852 hospitals considered for this year’s survey, only 152 scored high enough to be ranked in even one of 16 specialty areas. UW Medical Center ranked 12th in the nation and was among just 14 hospitals qualified to be listed in the 2010 Honor Roll for achieving high scores in six or more of the 16 specialties.


Several UW Medicine programs were ranked highly, including:


Rehabilitation (3) (based at UWMC and Harborview Medical Center)


Cancer (5)


Orthopaedics at Harborview Medical Center (12)


Orthopaedics at UWMC (16)


Ear, nose and throat (13)


Geriatrics (13) (based at Harborview Medical Center)


Kidney disorders (14)


Pulmonology (15)


Diabetes and endocrinology (15)


Gynecology (19)


Neurology/neurosurgery (19) (based at Harborview and UWMC)


Rheumatology (21)


Psychiatry (24)


Urology (30)



The rankings in 12 of the 16 specialties were driven by hard data such as death rates, procedure volume, and balance of nurses and patients. In the four remaining specialties–ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation, and rheumatology–hospitals were ranked on reputation alone. To be considered in any of the 12 data-driven specialties, a hospital first had to meet at least one of four criteria: it had to be a teaching hospital, or be affiliated with a medical school, or have at least 200 beds, or have 100 or more beds and the availability of four or more types of medical technology considered important in a high-quality medical facility, such as a PET/CT scanner and certain precision radiation therapies.


Next, the hospitals had to meet a volume requirement, individually calculated for each specialty. The required volume was the number of Medicare inpatients from 2006 to 2008 who had various specified procedures and conditions in the specialty. A hospital that fell short could still qualify if it had been nominated by at least one physician in any of the U.S. News Best Hospitals reputational surveys conducted in 2008, 2009, and 2010.



The complete U.S. News Honor Roll of the nation’s best hospitals in rank order is:


1. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore


2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.


3. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston


4. Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio


5. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles


6. New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell, New York City


7. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center


8. Barnes-Jewish Hospital/Washington University, St. Louis


9. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia


10. Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.


11. Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston


12. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle


13. UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)


14. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers



The U.S. News website has additional information on the rankings.