UCSF ranked among top 10 in the nation for adult psychiatric care

By Nicholas Roznovsky and Elizabeth Fernandez
 

UCSF Medical Center locations

Clockwise, from top left: UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, and UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and UCSF Medical Center have once again been ranked among the nation's top centers for adult psychiatry in U.S. News & World Report’s annual Best Hospitals survey. UCSF Psychiatry moved up two spots from last year's rankings into a tie for 9th nationwide, marking the fifth year in a row that UCSF has been honored as one of the country's best hospitals for mental health research and treatment.

U.S. News’ 2019-2020 rankings were calculated based on ratings by psychiatric specialists across the country over the past three years. UCSF Psychiatry remains the only psychiatric department in Northern California included in the top echelon.


In this year’s results, which were released July 30, UCSF ranked seventh on the national Best Hospitals Honor Roll and among the nation’s leading medical centers in all 15 specialties for which it was assessed. The rankings were drawn from evaluations of more than 4,650 hospitals across the country.

In addition to psychiatry, UCSF Medical Center ranked among the top 10 centers nationwide in nine other specialty areas: diabetes and endocrinology, neurology and neurosurgery, and urology (all ranked 3rd nationwide), orthopedics (4th), geriatrics (5th), nephrology (6th), rheumatology (7th), pulmonology (8th), and ophthalmology (9th). It was the highest-ranking hospital in Northern California for cancer care and gastroenterology and GI surgery.

“It is deeply gratifying that we have been recognized so consistently among the very best hospitals in the country,” said Mark R. Laret, chief executive officer and president of UCSF Health, which includes UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, and UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.

“This achievement is a reflection of our unwavering commitment to providing the best health care,” Laret said. “It also reflects the dedication and expertise of our clinical teams in the care they give, day after day, on behalf of our patients. We’re pleased to see that, once again, U.S. News has taken into account the higher risk level of our patients’ conditions and level of care that our teams provide.”

About U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals rankings

U.S. News & World Report began ranking hospitals in 1990. The specialty rankings assess hospital performance in high-complexity areas of inpatient care and are designed to identify medical centers that treat the most serious or complicated patients, “whose illnesses pose unusual challenges because of underlying conditions, procedure difficulty, advanced age or other medical issues that add risk.” They are published annually to help patients and their physicians make informed decisions about where to receive care for challenging health conditions or for common elective procedures.

The 11 hospitals ranked in adult psychiatry this year were named among the best for difficult cases and procedures by at least 5 percent of the psychiatric specialists who responded to U.S. News surveys in 2017, 2018, and 2019. U.S. News does not currently issue rankings for child and adolescent psychiatry.

Complete rankings are available on the U.S. News & World Report website and will be published in the magazine’s “Best Hospitals 2020” guidebook in late August.
 


About UCSF Psychiatry

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.

UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay and Laurel Heights, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.

About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences

The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.

The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

About UCSF

UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise.

It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals – UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland – as well as Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians, and the UCSF Faculty Practice. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF faculty also provide all physician care at the public Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.