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UCSF Medical Center Moves Up in Top 10 National Ranking

July 12, 2002
News Office: Bill Gordon (415) 476-2557

UCSF Medical Center ranks among the nation's top 10 hospitals, climbing two spots to rank seventh in a new survey conducted by U.S. News & World Report.

Results of the annual survey of "America's Best Hospitals" appear in the current (July 22) issue of the magazine.

"It's gratifying that UCSF Medical Center is recognized as the best hospital in Northern California and among the top hospitals in the United States," said Mark Laret, UCSF Medical Center's chief executive officer. "This rating of UCSF Medical Center is a testament to the quality of our faculty physicians, nurses and staff, who are here every hour of every day serving patients and doctors in the Bay Area, California and the West."

The ranking places UCSF Medical Center on the magazine's "honor roll" of the nation's leading hospitals, cited for "impressive quality and breadth of expertise."

UCSF Medical Center ranks among the nation's top 10 programs in the following specialties: neurology and neurosurgery, respiratory disorders, hormonal disorders, digestive disorders, gynecology, rheumatology and urology. UCSF Medical Center also ranked among the top 20 programs in pediatrics; cancer; eyes; ear, nose and throat; heart and heart surgery, kidney disease, geriatrics, psychiatry and orthopedics.

The results place UCSF Children's Hospital as the best in Northern California. UCSF Medical Center ranks as the best in Northern California for neurology and neurosurgery, respiratory disorders, cancer, digestive disorders, hormonal disorders, urology, rheumatology, gynecology and eyes.

The recognition of UCSF Medical Center's outstanding patient care coincides with its return to financial strength, a strong and growing patient referral base from across Northern California and throughout the country, and higher rankings earned by the UCSF School of Medicine and its faculty physicians who treat patients at the Medical Center.

In its most recent ranking of medical schools, U.S. News recognized the UCSF School of Medicine as the best public institution in the country, moving it up in the overall rankings to number six. The UCSF School of Medicine rose to the position of third largest recipient of National Institutes of Health research funds among all medical schools in 2001.

U.S. News has identified exceptional medical centers since 1990. The "America's Best Hospitals" methodology was devised in 1993 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which carries it out and refines it.

This year's survey ranks 205 top medical centers selected from 6,045 institutions across the country, based on a formula that weighs reputation, staffing, range of services, numbers and types of cases treated, and mortality rates.

The nation's 10 best hospitals, as determined by the survey, are the following:
(1) Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
(2) Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn
(3) Cleveland Clinic
(4) Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
(5) UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
(6) Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.
(7) UCSF Medical Center
(8) University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor
(9) Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis
(10) Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston