For the fifth year in a row, Loma Linda University Medical
Center has been ranked the No. 1 hospital in California’s Riverside and San
Bernardino counties, and its urology program among the top 50 in the nation by
U.S. News & World Report.
The annual U.S. News Best Hospitals rankings, now in its
25th year, recognize hospitals that excel in treating the most challenging
patients.
“This recognition is testament to the commitment, hard work,
and caring of all the doctors and staff at LLUMC
to provide the best possible whole-person care for our patients, and upholds
our mission of continuing the teaching and healing ministry of Jesus Christ,” said Kerry Heinrich, interim CEO of the Adventist-operated LLUMC.
LLUMC also was ranked 14th
best in California, and recognized for 11 “high performing” specialties:
cancer; cardiology and heart surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; ear,
nose and throat; gastroenterology and GI surgery; geriatrics; gynecology;
nephrology; neurology and neurosurgery; orthopedics; and pulmonology.
“We are pleased that this recognition reflects positively on
the commitment of the urology department, and the institution as a whole, to
delivering excellent, whole person, patient centered care,” said Dr. Herbert
Ruckle, chief of the urology department.
For 2014-15, U.S. News evaluated hospitals in 16 adult
specialties and ranked the top 50 in most of the specialties. Just 3 percent of
the nearly 5,000 hospitals that were analyzed for Best Hospitals 2014-15 earned
national ranking in even one specialty.
U.S. News also recognizes hospitals that perform nearly at
the level of their nationally ranked peers and represent valuable regional
sources of quality care.
“The data tell the story — a hospital that emerged from our
analysis as one of the best has much to be proud of,” said U.S. News health
rankings editor Avery Comarow. “A Best Hospital has demonstrated its expertise
in treating the most challenging patients.”
U.S. News publishes Best Hospitals to help guide patients
who need a high level of care because they face particularly difficult surgery,
a challenging condition or extra risk because of age or multiple health problems.
Objective measures such as patient survival and safety data, adequacy of nurse
staffing levels and other data largely determined the rankings in most
specialties.
The rankings are available at health.usnews.com/best-hospitals
and will appear in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals 2015” guidebook, available in
August.
