By Nicholas Roznovsky and Elizabeth Fernandez
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
For the seventh 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 2021-2022 Best Hospitals survey. UCSF Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences moved up two spots from last year's rankings into 6th nationwide, maintaining its position as top hospital for mental health research and treatment in northern California.
U.S. News’ 2021-2022 rankings were calculated based on ratings provided by psychiatric specialists from across the country over the past three years. UCSF has been included in the rankings' top group each year since 2015.
In this year’s results, which were released July 27, UCSF ranked 9th on the national Best Hospitals Honor Roll and among the nation’s leading medical centers in all 14 adult specialties for which it was assessed. The rankings were drawn from evaluations of more than 4,750 medical centers across the country.
“This is a great honor that reflects our priority of providing the best care for our patients, including those who come to us for the most complex care,” 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. “In the face of the global health crisis, our clinical teams have maintained their focus on the total health needs of our patients. I am so proud of the compassionate care they provide, every day, to the patients we are privileged to serve.”
In addition to psychiatry, UCSF Medical Center ranked among the top 10 centers nationwide in six other specialty areas: neurology and neurosurgery (1st), ear, nose and throat (5th), diabetes and endocrinology (6th), rheumatology (7th), geriatrics (9th), and ophthalmology (9th). It was the top-ranked hospital overall in Northern California, including ranking 1st in the San Francisco metro area, and was also was the highest-ranked hospital in Northern California in 11 specialty areas.
“UCSF has a long history of excellence in translating science into innovative care that improves the lives of our patients,” said Sam Hawgood, MBBS, chancellor of UC San Francisco. “These rankings – including the top spot in neurology and neurosurgery – show that our clinical teams, researchers and staff continue to build upon that legacy.”
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 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 2019, 2020, and 2021. 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 2022” 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 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—Neurology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, 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.
