Year in review 2011: Numerous national rankings give VUMC high marks
Vanderbilt University Medical Center featured prominently in several of the rankings conducted throughout the year by U.S. News and World Report.
• The Medical Center garnered a best-ever No. 14 ranking and a spot on the “Honor Roll” in the magazine's annual ranking of America's Best Hospitals. VUMC posted an all-time high of 11 out of a possible 16 medical specialties ranked by the magazine. The following VUMC specialties ranked among the nation’s best in their respective fields: Urology (9), Nephrology (12), Diabetes & Endocrinology (14), Ear, Nose & Throat (14), Pulmonology (15), Gastroenterology (17), Cardiology & Heart Surgery (23), Cancer (26), Neurology & Neurosurgery (37), Orthopaedics (47), and Gynecology (49).
• In this year’s edition of “America's Best Graduate Schools,” VUSM stood at 15th out of 126 accredited U.S. medical schools. The School of Nursing rose four spots to 15, up from 19th when graduate nursing programs were last ranked in 2007.
• VUMC is the top health care provider in the Nashville region according to the magazine’s first-ever “Best Hospitals Metro Area” rankings. The new rankings recognize 622 hospitals in or near major cities and are based on the magazine’s annual summer ranking of “America’s Best Hospitals,” which last year recognized 152 hospitals, including Vanderbilt.
• The Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt was included among the nation's leaders in pediatric health care in the magazine's Best Children's Hospitals rankings.
The hospital achieved rankings in a maximum of 10 out of 10 pediatric specialty programs.
Children's Hospital continues to be a leader in Urology, improving one spot to now rank 5th. A substantial improvement was also seen in Cardiology and Heart Surgery, with Vanderbilt's program moving from 26th to 20th in the nation, while the Division of Neonatology maintained its No. 11 spot.
Other specialties ranked this year include: Cancer-41, Diabetes and Endocrinology-25, Gastroenterology-22, Nephrology-39, Neurology and Neurosurgery-39, Orthopaedics-29 and Pulmonology-36.
• Vanderbilt University has been named one of the best places for postdoctoral fellows to work by The Scientist magazine. Vanderbilt was ranked 10th in the country, up from 26th last year, in a survey of non-tenured life scientists working in academia, industry or noncommercial research institutions.
• VUMC was been recognized for the 12th consecutive year as one of the top 100 hospitals in the country, in a study by Thomson Reuters Healthcare, and was again named a winner of the Everest Award for National Benchmarks.
• For the seventh consecutive year, VUMC was named among the nation's 100 “most-wired” hospitals and health systems for its innovative efforts in medical technology. The 2011 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study was conducted by Hospitals and Health Networks magazine, Accenture, McKesson Corp. and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.
• Vanderbilt University Hospital was again named among the nation's 65 Leapfrog Top Hospitals for 2011. VUH is the only Tennessee hospital that made the list.
The Leapfrog Group is a coalition of public and private purchasers of employee health coverage founded a decade ago to work for improvements in health care safety, quality and affordability.