By Nicholas Roznovsky and Elizabeth Fernandez
(Left) The UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building, opened in 2022, serves as the home of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and hosts a multitude of outpatient services for adults, as well as children, adolescents, and families. (Right) UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital relocated in 2023 to the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion, where it conducts a 30-bed inpatient unit and intensive outpatient clinical services for adults.
For the 10th 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 Best Hospitals survey. UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences was ranked 7th nationwide in this year's rankings, maintaining its position as the top hospital for adult mental health research and treatment in northern California.
U.S. News’ 2024-2025 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 nearly 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.
UCSF continues streak of excellence overall
In this year’s results, which were released July 16, 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 20 medical centers nationwide and five in California. The analysis no longer includes ordinal rankings for the Honor Roll hospitals to reflect the overall high levels of care among these leader institutions.
“This year’s rankings reflect UCSF Health’s relentless commitment to making world-class specialty care accessible and driving innovation that advances the health of our whole community,” said Suresh Gunasekaran, president and chief executive officer of UCSF Health. “Our success is directly attributable to the excellence of the entire UCSF Health team, their focus on improving quality, safety, access and equity, and their tireless dedication to our patients.”
In addition to psychiatry, UCSF Medical Center ranked among the top 10 centers nationwide in six other specialty areas: neurology and neurosurgery (3rd); geriatric care (3rd); pulmonology and lung surgery (4th); cancer (7th); rheumatology (7th); and orthopedics (9th). It was also noted as among the nation's best in six additional specialties and ranked as “high-performing” – the highest category – in 17 adult procedures and conditions, including diabetes, heart attacks, prostate cancer surgery, colon cancer surgery, heart bypass surgery, and knee replacement.
“These rankings are a validation of our long-standing work to advance the science of medicine and bring those innovations as quickly as possible to our patients,” said Sam Hawgood, MBBS, chancellor of UC San Francisco. “They reflect the hard work of our clinical teams and collaborations across our clinical, research and education enterprises.”
In California, three UC Health medical centers – UCSF Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center and UC San Diego Medical Center – were recognized among the state’s most distinguished hospitals.
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 board-certified psychiatric specialists who responded to U.S. News surveys in 2022, 2023, and 2024. An additional eight hospitals were noted as “high-performing,” but did not receive rankings. Over 32,000 psychiatrists were eligible to participate in the evaluation process through the physician networking site Doximity. 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.
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, focused on delivering world-class patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, teaching the next generation of behavioral health leaders, and fostering diversity, health equity, and community.
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.
