UCSF Medical Center Ranks Among Nation’s 10 Best Hospitals for 2020-21

UCSF Medical Center has been recognized as one of the nation’s finest hospitals in the U.S. News & World Report 2020-2021 Best Hospitals survey, ranking among the top 10 hospitals nationwide for the 22nd year.

In this year’s results, released July 28, UCSF ranked eighth on the national Best Hospitals Honor Roll. A place on the Honor Roll is awarded to the 20 U.S. hospitals that deliver the highest quality of care across a range of specialties, procedures and conditions.

It also was ranked among the best in all 15 adult specialties for which it was assessed, including top 10 status nationwide in 10 areas: cancer, diabetes, geriatrics, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, ophthalmology, psychiatry, pulmonology and lung surgery, rheumatology, and urology.

UCSF Medical Center ranked second nationwide in neurology and neurosurgery, and was recognized as Best in the West in four specialties: diabetes, neurology and neurosurgery, rheumatology and urology. It was the top-ranked hospital overall in Northern California, including ranking No. 1 in the San Francisco Metro Area and No. 3 statewide. It also was the highest-ranked hospital in Northern California in 12 specialty areas.

“This recognition reflects the dedication of our staff to providing the best and most compassionate care for our patients,” said Mark R. Laret, chief executive officer and president of UCSF Health, which includes UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. “In these challenging times, amidst a global pandemic, we want every patient to feel confident knowing that these rankings reflect both expertise and safety for any specialty care, primary care and screenings they require.”

The Best Hospitals survey also recognized UCSF Medical Center with the highest possible rating – high performing – in eight of 10 common specialty procedures that were evaluated: abdominal aortic aneurysm repair, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colon cancer surgery, heart failure, hip replacement, knee replacement, lung cancer surgery, and transcatheter aortic valve replacement.

“These rankings, across such a broad range of expertise, are an indication of our steadfast commitment to advancing health in our community by providing the highest level of care,” said Sam Hawgood, MBBS, chancellor of UC San Francisco. “We’re very proud of the physicians, nurses, technicians and staff who compose the UCSF Health team and their consistently excellent work.”

The hospital rankings, which began in 1990, are designed to enable patients and their physicians to make informed decisions about where to receive care for challenging health conditions and common elective procedures. The specialty rankings assess hospital performance in highly complex areas of inpatient care and aim to identify medical centers that treat patients whose conditions are the most serious or challenging, due to underlying conditions, procedure difficulty, advanced age or other medical issues.

As in previous years, rankings in 12 of the 16 specialties were determined by an extensive, data-driven analysis that measures performance across the hospitals’ structure, process and patient outcomes. Rankings in ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and rheumatology are based solely on expert opinion. UCSF Medical Center is not evaluated in rehabilitation.