During the past year, Vanderbilt University Medical Center again placed highly in several of the various rankings conducted by U.S. News and World Report.
• In the 2014-15 edition of “America’s Best Hospitals,” VUMC had 12 out of a possible 16 specialties either nationally ranked or designated as nationally high performing.
In the magazine’s “Regional Recognitions” segment, VUMC was named the No. 1 hospital in both the Metro Nashville area and the state for the third straight year. VUMC has topped this portion of the U.S. News rankings since it was introduced in 2012.
The following VUMC specialty programs were nationally ranked: Cancer; Ear, Nose and Throat; Nephrology; Neurology and Neurosurgery; Pulmonology; and Urology. High performing specialty programs were: Cardiology and Heart Surgery; Diabetes and Endocrinology; Gastroenterology; Geriatrics; Gynecology; and Orthopaedics.
• Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) was ranked No. 15 among the nation’s 114 fully accredited Research Schools of Medicine in U.S. News’ Best Graduate Schools ranking. U.S. News & World Report uses a methodology for Schools of Medicine-Research that arrives at a weighted average across 8 indicators. The indicators were reviewed in fall 2013 and early 2014.
• The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt was again named among the top pediatric health care hospitals in U.S. News’ annual Best Children’s Hospitals rankings.
Children’s Hospital is the only pediatric hospital in Middle Tennessee providing a comprehensive array of specialty and subspecialty services to receive this honor, achieving national rankings for 9 out of 10 of its pediatric specialty programs.
The ranked specialty programs were Cancer, Cardiology and Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Neonatology, Nephrology, Neurology and Neurosurgery, Pediatric Diabetes and Endocrinology, Pulmonology and Urology.
• According to annual figures available through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the School of Medicine is ranked ninth in the nation among U.S. medical schools in total grant support provided through the nation’s medical research agency.
Receiving $292,413,440 in NIH grant support during calendar year 2013, VUSM moved up four places from the most recent ranking by adding an additional $5,723,560 in funding.
NIH funding support is considered a key indicator of an institution’s overall strength in biomedical research.
• For the 14th time, VUMC was recognized by Truven Health Analytics as one of the nation’s “100 Top Hospitals.”
• VUMC was again named among the “100 Great Hospitals in America” by Becker’s Hospital Review.
To create the list, Becker’s editorial team analyzed data from numerous sources, including U.S. News & World Report, Truven Health Analytics’ 100 Top Hospitals, HealthGrades, Magnet Recognition by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the Studer Group and the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program to establish the 2013 list.
• Vanderbilt University Hospital earned an “A” Hospital Safety Score from the Leapfrog Group, placing VUH among the safest hospitals in the nation.
The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage that works to encourage health care safety, quality and affordability. The group compiles 28 measures of publicly available hospital data to produce its safety grades. More than 2,500 hospitals are included in the evaluation.
• For the tenth year in a row, VUMC named one of the nation’s “most wired” hospitals by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine.
The 16th annual Health Care’s Most Wired Survey honors hospitals that are using electronic medical records and other technologies to move toward more integrated and patient-centered care.
Hospitals were graded based on four key measures — infrastructure, business and administrative management, clinical quality and safety and clinical integration.