UW Medicine ranks high in U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 Best Hospitals rankings

UW Medicine hospitals and programs rank high in U.S. News & World Report’s 2011 edition of America’s Best Hospitals.  UW Medical Center has made the U.S. News national Honor Roll since the rankings began in 1990 for its breadth of excellence in specialty care.

This year’s magazine will also include the first ever Best Hospitals metropolitan area rankings.  In these regionalized rankings, hospitals were compared with others in their geographical region only. Out of 35 hospitals in the Seattle/Tacoma metro area, UW Medicine’s four hospitals all ranked in the top 10.  UW Medical Center was named No. 1;  Harborview Medical Center No. 2;  Northwest Hospital & Medical Center and Valley Medical Center tied for No. 6.

The rankings are available at www.usnews.com/besthospitals and will be featured in the U.S. News Best Hospitals guidebook, which will go on sale Tuesday, August 30.

UW Medicine includes eight entities: Harborview Medical Center, Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, Valley Medical Center, UW Medical Center, UW Neighborhood Clinics, UW Physicians, UW School of Medicine, and Airlift Northwest.  UW Medicine also shares in the ownership and governance of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance with Seattle Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and shares in ownership of Children’s University Medical Group with Seattle Children’s Hospital.

UW Medical Center ranked 13^th in the nation in the overall ranking by U.S. News & World Report. This year, only 140 of the 4,825 hospitals that were evaluated nationally performed well enough to rank in even one specialty.  Of those 140 hospitals, just 17 qualified for a spot on the Honor Roll by ranking at or near the top in six or more specialties.

UW Medicine programs at UW Medical Center and Harborview were nationally ranked in the following specialties:

Rehabilitation (3)
Cancer (6) (UW Medicine physicians practice at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance)
Diabetes and endocrinology (10)
Nephrology (11)
Orthopaedics (11-Harborview, 17-UW Medical Center)
Ear, nose and throat (12)
Neurology/neurosurgery (15)
Pulmonology (17-UW Medical Center, 47-Harborview)
Geriatrics (20)
Gynecology (28)
Urology (29)

The rankings in 12 of the 16 specialties were driven by hard data such as death rates, number of patients, 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 of eight key medical technologies, such as a PET/CT scanner and certain precision radiation therapies. This year, 2,196 hospitals, or 46 percent of the initial number, met that test.

For more information on the methodology, visit www.usnews.com/besthospitals

The complete 2011-12 U.S. News Honor Roll of the nation's best hospitals in rank order is:

1. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

2.  Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

3.  Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

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

7.   UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco8.  Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston

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

10.  Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

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

12.  UPMC – University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

13.  University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle

14.  University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor*

14.  Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville*

16.   Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York

17.   Stanford Hospital and Clinics, Stanford, Calif.

*Two Honor Roll hospitals tied for 14th

For more information on the rankings, go to www.usnews.com/besthospitals


About UW Medicine

UW Medicine trains health professionals and medical scientists, conducts research to improve health and prevent disease worldwide, and provides primary and specialty care to patients throughout Seattle/King County and the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho) region.  UW Medicine has major academic and service affiliations with Seattle Children’s Hospital, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the Veteran’s Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle, and the VA Hospital in Boise, Idaho.

The UW School of Medicine has been ranked No. 1 in the nation in primary-care training for the past 18 years by US News & World Report.  It is the top public institution for receipt of biomedical research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and second among all institutions, public and private,  for NIH funding. UW Medicine’s 2,000 full-time faculty and nearly 5,000 volunteer and part-time faculty include four Nobel Laureates, 33 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 33 members of the Institute of Medicine.  For more information, visit UW Medicine. Follow us on Twitter - @UWMedicineNews

 

###

blog comments powered by Disqus