Two national magazines laud VUMC, physicians for quality of health care
Two prominent national magazines have ranked Vanderbilt University Medical Center and its physicians among the nation's elite in providing quality health care.
In separate surveys, U.S. News & World Report ranked Vanderbilt University Hospital and the Vanderbilt Clinic among the best hospitals in the United States, and Good Housekeeping listed two VUMC physicians as being among the nation's best doctors for women.
The eighth-annual assessment of health care facilities in U.S. News, dubbed "America's Best Hospitals," ranks institutions by 17 different specialties. Vanderbilt University Hospital and The Vanderbilt Clinic ranked in six of the specialty areas surveyed: endocrinology, cancer, gynecology, otolaryngology, pulmonology and rheumatology.
No other Tennessee hospital is included in the national rankings.
"This demonstrates once again that Vanderbilt University Medical Center and its people are among the best in the nation," said Dr. Harry R. Jacobson, Deputy Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs.
The U.S. News ranking uses a method designed by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC), a noted social science research group at the University of Chicago, to rank the quality of the nation's hospitals each year. NORC's mathematical model combines reputation surveys, statistics and information related to quality. Nationwide, 135 hospitals were assessed.
The 17 specialties on which hospitals were ranked are: AIDS, cancer, cardiology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, gynecology, neurology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, otolaryngology, pediatrics, psychiatry, pulmonary disease, rehabilitation, rheumatology and urology.
The Good Housekeeping survey listed the country's best doctors for women in specialties ranging from infertility to menopause.
Dr. Frank H. Boehm, professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was listed as one of the nation's finest perinatologists, and Dr. Howard W. Jones III, professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, was ranked among the country's finest gynecologic oncologists.
The 401 physicians listed in the survey were determined by polling more than 260 department chairs and section chiefs in obstetrics and gynecology at major medical centers across the country. To eliminate bias, the doctors were not allowed to recommend anyone at their own institutions.