By Nicholas Roznovsky and Elizabeth Fernandez
Clockwise, from top left: UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital at Parnassus Heights, the Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, and UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion
For the ninth year in a row, UCSF Medical Center and the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences have been recognized as one of the nation's top centers for adult psychiatry in the U.S. News & World Report 2023-2024 Best Hospitals survey. UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences was ranked 6th nationwide, maintaining its position as the top hospital for adult mental health research and treatment in northern California.
U.S. News’ 2023-2024 rankings were calculated based on ratings provided by psychiatric specialists from across the country over the past three years. This year's rankings were drawn from evaluations of more than 4,500 medical centers across the country. UCSF has been included in the psychiatric specialty's top group of ranked hospitals each year since 2015.
In this year’s results, which were released August 1, 2023, UCSF Medical Center was once again named to the Honor Roll of the nation’s top hospitals for adult care, representing the highest quality of care and safety standards in the country. The distinction was earned by only 22 medical centers nationwide and five in California. This year’s analysis removed ordinal rankings for the Honor Roll hospitals, reflecting the overall high levels of care among these leader institutions.
“We’re honored to be recognized among the best hospitals across the full range of specialties,” said Suresh Gunasekaran, president and chief executive officer of UCSF Health. “The rankings are a testament to the commitment of the entire UCSF Health team to continuously improve the quality, safety, and equity of the care we provide.”
In addition to psychiatry, UCSF Medical Center ranked among the top 10 centers nationwide in six other specialty areas: neurology and neurosurgery (2nd); geriatric care (4th); cancer (7th); rheumatology (7th); pulmonology and lung surgery (8th); and ophthalmology (9th).
UCSF Medical Center is the top-ranked hospital in the San Francisco Metro Area and the only hospital in Northern California to be ranked among the top 50 hospitals in all 14 specialty areas in which it was assessed. including cardiology, diabetes/endocrine disorders, gastroenterology, obstetrics/gynecology, orthopedics, and otolaryngology. It was also rated as “high-performing” — the highest category — in 20 adult procedures and conditions, including colon cancer surgery, diabetes, stroke, heart bypass surgery, prostate cancer surgery, and maternity care.
“UCSF’s success is built on the longstanding collaborations across our care delivery, research, and education mission that have driven innovation and transformed lives,” said Sam Hawgood, MBBS, chancellor of UC San Francisco. “These rankings showcase that history and the exceptional care our clinical teams deliver every day.”
About U.S. News & World Report Best Hospital rankings
U.S. News & World Report's 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.
The seven 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 2021, 2022, and 2023. 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 2024” guidebook later this fall.
About UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences 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 and Behavioral Sciences conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including the UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building; UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital; UCSF Medical Centers at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Mount Zion; 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; UCSF Fresno; and numerous community-based sites around the San Francisco Bay Area.
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—Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Neurology, 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
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF’s primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area.
