The UCLA Health System’s hospitals in Westwood and Santa Monica have been named to U.S. News and World Report’s Best Hospitals 2014–15 Honor Roll. UCLA was ranked number five in the country and number one in both California and the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
The annual rankings, now in their 25th year, are the magazine’s most exclusive rankings, recognizing hospitals that excel at treating patients who need an especially high level of care.
This year’s Honor Roll highlights just 17 hospitals out of nearly 5,000 nationwide for their expertise in treating the most challenging patients across a range of medical specialties.
“We are grateful and honored to again be recognized for the outstanding work of our physicians and staff on behalf of the patients who seek care at UCLA,” said Dr. David Feinberg, president of the UCLA Health System and CEO of the UCLA Hospital System. “Our goal is to treat each patient who comes through our doors as if he or she were a member of our own family, with dignity and respect, in a compassionate and safe environment that delivers the highest-quality medical care available.”
To be included on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll, a medical center must place in the top tier in at least six of the 16 specialties in which U.S. News ranks hospitals.
UCLA ranked highly in 15 of the 16 specialties: cancer at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (ranked No. 9 nationally); cardiology and heart surgery (12); diabetes and endocrinology (9); ear, nose and throat (11); gastroenterology and GI surgery (5); geriatrics (3); gynecology (11); nephrology (8); neurology and neurosurgery (7); ophthalmology at Stein and Doheny Eye Institutes (5); orthopaedics (11); psychiatry at the Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA (8); pulmonology (16); rheumatology (8); and urology (4).
“The data tell the story — an Honor Roll hospital has much to be proud of,” said Avery Comarow, the health rankings editor at U.S. News. “Just 144 hospitals, or about 3 percent of the nearly 5,000 we evaluated, earned national ranking in even one specialty, let alone put up top scores in six specialities.”
U.S. News publishes Best Hospitals to help guide patients who need a high level of care because they face a particularly difficult surgery, a challenging condition or extra risk because of age or multiple health problems. Objective measures such as patient survival and safety data, the adequacy of nurse staffing levels, and other data largely determined the rankings in most specialties.
“This honor confirms, once again, that the UCLA Health System is one of the premier health care providers in the nation,” said Dr. A. Eugene Washington, vice chancellor for health sciences and dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “We not only provide the most sophisticated state-of-the-art care but also rank among the very best academic medical centers in the nation on patient satisfaction scores. I commend and congratulate each member of our team for putting patients first and helping us earn this distinction.”
The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International, a leading research organization based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Using the same data, U.S. News produced the state and metropolitan rankings.
The rankings are available online now and will appear in print in the “U.S. News Best Hospitals 2015” guidebook in August.
