UCSF wins consumer choice award for San Francisco hospitals

UCSF Medical Center has been named the winner of the 2009-2010 “Consumer Choice Award” for hospitals in San Francisco by the National Research Corporation, a major healthcare performance research firm. Local consumers rated UCSF as the number one choice for quality healthcare among all hospitals in San Francisco.

This is the fifth time UCSF has received the award, which recognizes the top hospitals in more than 300 markets across the United States.

“We are honored to have received this award, which reflects UCSF’s unwavering commitment to caring for the people of San Francisco and beyond,” said UCSF Medical Center CEO Mark Laret. “It is truly gratifying to be recognized not only as one of the top 10 hospitals in the nation for providing high-level care, but also as San Francisco’s very best hospital in the eyes of our consumers. We are thrilled that our patients and others hold UCSF in such high regard and promise, in return, to strive to continue improving our care every day.”

Each year, NRC surveys the healthcare decision makers of more than 250,000 households in the contiguous 48 states and the District of Columbia to determine which hospitals are the most highly regarded. Healthcare consumers rate hospitals in four areas to produce the overall standings: quality, image/reputation, doctors, and nurses.

UCSF Medical Center has an ongoing program to advance the quality and safety of patient care. Current efforts include: continuously evaluating its performance against rigorous internal standards and industry benchmarks, cultivating a patient care team who work together toward the same priority of patient-centered care and risk reduction, and employing physician specialists known as “hospitalists” who focus on coordination of a hospitalized patient’s care.

UCSF Medical Center is consistently ranked by “U.S. News & World Report” as one of the nation’s top 10 hospitals and the best in the San Francisco Bay Area.  In the most recent survey, reported in July 2009, UCSF ranked seventh. For more information on UCSF Medical Center, go to http://www.ucsfhealth.org/. For more information on the Consumer Choice Awards, go to http://www.nationalresearch.com/.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. Further information is available at http://www.ucsf.edu/.