UW Medical Center Named Washington's Best Hospital

SEATTLE, WA — U.S. News & World Report has released its latest rankings of the best hospitals in the United States for 2020-2021, naming the University of Washington Medical Center the number one hospital in both Seattle and Washington state at large.

According to UW Medicine, this marks the ninth consecutive year the UW Medical Center has topped the list for Washington. The center also ranked well in specific treatment categories: the study ranked it fifth in the whole nation for rehabilitation medicine and ninth for cancer care.

"These high rankings are a tribute to the incredible work of all our UW Medicine staff and physicians, especially as we became ground zero for the COVID-19 pandemic," said Lisa Brandenburg, president of UW Medicine Hospitals & Clinics. "I feel privileged and proud to be part of this team."

Every year U.S. News ranks hospitals across 16 medical specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gastroenterology and GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology, neurology and neurosurgery, ophthalmology, orthopedics, psychiatry, pulmonology and lung surgery, rehabilitation, rheumatology and urology.

Twelve of the specialty rankings — which cover categories like cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, diabetes and endocrinology and nephrology — are determined mostly by data; the other four specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry, rehabilitation and rheumatology — are determined entirely by expert opinion, U.S. News said.

Of note is that the rankings were determined using data from before the coronavirus pandemic — meaning the pandemic’s impact on hospitals nationwide is not shown in the latest rankings.

“The pandemic has altered, perhaps permanently, how patients get care and from whom they get it. Amid the disruption, we are steadfastly committed to providing the public with authoritative data for comparing hospital quality,” said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News. “No hospital’s clinical team came through this unprecedented health crisis unscathed.”

Regional Hospital Rankings

Of course, the University of Washington Medical Center isn't the only quality hospital in Washington state. Here's a look at the state's the top ranking hospitals:

1. University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle
2. Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle
3. Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children's Hospital, Spokane
4. EvergreenHealth, Kirkland
5. Overlake Medical Center, Bellevue (tied for 5th)
6. Providence Regional Medical Center, Everett (tied for 5th)
7. Swedish Medical Center - First Hill, Seattle (tied for 5th)
8. Providence St. Peter Hospital, Olympia (tied for 8th)
9. St. Joseph Medical Center, Tacoma (tied for 8th)
10. Kadlec Regional Medical Center, Richland

National Honor Roll

U.S. Newsalso creates a nationwide Honor Roll for medical centers that deliver exceptional treatment across multiple areas of care.

“The Honor Roll is geared to identifying hospitals that are both exceptionally good at the service they offer and offer a wide breadth of service,” Harder told Patch last year.

The top ten hospitals on the Honor Roll are:

1. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota
2. Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore
4. New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia in Cornell, New York
5. UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles
6. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
7. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, San Francisco
8. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco
9. NYU Langone Hospitals, New York, N.Y
10. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

Methodology

U.S. News & World Report said the 2020-21 rankings evaluated nearly every community hospital in America. Only 134 hospitals out of over 4,500 were ranked in one specialty, while 563 hospitals were ranked among the best regional hospitals. A hospital was ranked regionally based on its performance in delivering complex and common care, U.S. News said. The rankings are jointly produced by U.S. News and RTI International, a North Carolina-based research organization.

(Read the full U.S. News best hospitals methodology.)