Two UCSF Health Hospitals Among Nation’s Best in Quality, Safety

Leapfrog recognizes UCSF medical centers at Parnassus Heights, Mount Zion for quality of care as top teaching hospitals.

By Jess Berthold

UCSF Health’s hospitals at Parnassus Heights and Mount Zion have both earned The Leapfrog Group’s 2023 Top Hospital award, a national distinction that only 6% of hospitals can claim.

More than 2,100 hospitals were considered for the award in one of four categories: pediatric, general, rural and teaching. Leapfrog, a health care transparency nonprofit, honored the UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights’ Moffitt and Long Hospitals and the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion for their exceptional patient safety and quality of care.

UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights
exterior of the Mount Zion medical center
UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion

“This distinction reflects the hard work our clinicians and staff put in every day to provide excellent care for all of our patients, no matter where they come from or their ability to pay,” said UCSF Health President and Chief Executive Officer Suresh Gunasekaran. “We are honored to have our hospitals recognized as best in class for safety and quality.”

Recent efforts around safety and quality at UCSF Health hospitals include increasing family and patient involvement on quality improvement committees and a campaign to reduce hospital-acquired infections, alongside continuous work to improve quality across the range of hospital care.

This distinction reflects the hard work our clinicians and staff put in every day to provide excellent care for all of our patients, no matter where they come from or their ability to pay.”

Suresh Gunasekaran, President and CEO, UCSF Health

Hospitals must have earned an “A’ in the most recent round of scoring for the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade to be eligible as a Top Hospital. Leapfrog’s rankings are based on hospitals’ performance across many areas, including maintaining systems to prevent medication errors and infections, and having higher quality maternity care and safer surgery.

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland also received the Top Hospital award last year in the children’s hospitals category.

Last month, Leapfrog awarded a 2023 “A” safety grade to UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay, which includes the UCSF Betty Irene Moore Women’s Hospital, UCSF Bakar Cancer Hospital and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco. The grade, updated twice a year, is based on more than 30 national performance measures and is peer-reviewed, fully transparent and free to the public.

UCSF Medical Center consistently ranks among the nation’s top hospitals, according to U.S. News & World Report, and has been named among the nation’s leaders in quality and safety across health care’s most highly regarded rating systems. It received a 5-star rating from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for its quality of care, has achieved the gold standard “magnet recognition” for nursing excellence for more than a decade, and is listed among the top-performing academic medical centers in quality and safety by the health care performance improvement company Vizient, Inc.

About UCSF Health: UCSF Health is recognized worldwide for its innovative patient care, reflecting the latest medical knowledge, advanced technologies and pioneering research. It includes the flagship UCSF Medical Center, which is a top-ranked specialty hospital, as well as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, with campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians and the UCSF Faculty Practice. These hospitals serve as the academic medical center of the University of California, San Francisco, which is world-renowned for its graduate-level health sciences education and biomedical research. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. Visit ucsfhealth.org. Follow UCSF Health on Facebook or on Twitter.

About The Leapfrog Group: Founded in 2000 by large employers and other purchasers, The Leapfrog Group is a national nonprofit organization driving a movement for giant leaps forward in the quality and safety of American health care. The flagship Leapfrog Hospital Survey and new Leapfrog Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Survey collect and transparently report hospital and ASC performance, empowering purchasers to find the highest-value care and giving consumers the lifesaving information they need to make informed decisions. The Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade, Leapfrog's other main initiative, assigns letter grades to hospitals based on their record of patient safety, helping consumers protect themselves and their families from errors, injuries, accidents, and infections.