July 16, 2013
UW Medicine hospitals rank highly in latest U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals
UW Medicine hospitals ranked highly in U.S. News & World Report’s 2013-14 edition of Best Hospitals, released online July 16.
University of Washington Medical Center is ranked No. 1 as the best hospital in the state and in the Seattle metro area. UW Medical Center also is rated among the nation’s top 10 hospitals in three specialties: rehabilitation (No. 4), cancer (No. 7), and diabetes and endocrinology (No. 8).
Harborview Medical Center ranked No. 3 in the Seattle area and No. 4 in the state; Northwest Hospital & Medical Center ranked No. 7 in Seattle and No. 9 in the state; and Valley Medical Center is No. 11 in Seattle and No. 14 in the state. All four hospitals are recognized on U.S. News’ Best Hospitals in Puget Sound list.
U.S. News publishes Best Hospitals to guide patients who need a high level of care because they face a difficult surgery, a challenging condition, or added risk because of other health problems or age. To rank the best adult and children’s hospitals, data from more 4,806 medical centers across the country were analyzed.
As part of its method to identify the leading medical centers, U.S. News evaluated hospitals in 16 health specialties. About 3 percent of the country’s hospitals earned a national ranking in the top 50 for at least one of these specialties, and 15 percent of hospitals were recognized among their region’s best for high performance in at least one specialty.
Objective measures such as specialty-specific patient volumes, patient survival and safety data, the adequacy of nursing staffing levels, and other data largely determined the rankings in most specialties.
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 Children’s Hospital and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and shares in the ownership of Children’s University Medical Group with Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Below are the specialties nationally ranked for UW Medical Center, and specialties classified as high performing for UW Medical Center, Harborview, Northwest, and Valley.
UW Medical Center is nationally ranked in:
Cancer (UW Medicine physicians practice at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The National Cancer Institute recognizes UW Medical Center and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center as a designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.)
Diabetes and endocrinology
Ear, nose and throat
Geriatrics
Gynecology
Nephrology
Neurology and neurosurgery
Pulmonology
Rehabilitation
Urology
UW Medical Center is high performing in:
Cardiology and heart surgery
Gastroenterology and GI surgery
Orthopedics
Harborview Medical Center is high performing in:
Diabetes and endocrinology
Ear, nose and throat
Gastroenterology and GI surgery
Geriatrics
Nephrology
Neurology and neurosurgery
Orthopedics
Pulmonary
Urology
Northwest Hospital and Medical Center is high performing in:
Gastroenterology and GI surgery
Gynecology
Neurology & Neurosurgery
Orthopedics
Valley Medical Center is high performing in:
Orthopedics
The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International, a research organization located in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The rankings have been published online at http://usnews.com/best-hospitals and will appear in print in the U.S. News Best Hospitals 2014 guidebook available in bookstores and on newsstands Aug. 27.
Tag(s): Harborview Medical Center • Rankings • UW Medicine
