JULY 31, 2003 | For the eighth consecutive year, UAMS Medical Center has been named by U.S. News & World Report to its annual list of “America’s Best Hospitals.”

In its July 28 issue, the magazine ranked the geriatrics clinical care program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), the state’s only academic medical center, among the best in the nation.

The latest ranking is the second recognition by U.S News in three months for the geriatrics program and for UAMS. In April, the magazine, in its annual list of “America’s Best Graduate Schools,” ranked the geriatrics program at UAMS as ninth in the nation, in a top-10 field that included Johns Hopkins, Duke and Harvard Universities. It also named the master’s degree program in the UAMS College of Nursing to that same graduate school list, moving it up the list to 39th in the nation from 46th the previous year.

“We are very pleased to once again be recognized as one of ‘America’s Best Hospitals’ by U.S. News & World Report,” said Richard Pierson, vice chancellor for clinical programs at UAMS, of the most recent distinction. “The continued ranking year after year of UAMS Medical Center to this list is particularly heartening and can be attributed to the excellent medical and nursing care our staff provides.”

The Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging at UAMS is designated as a Center of Excellence at UAMS and includes clinical care, research, education and community outreach programs within its scope. Under the direction of David A. Lipschitz, M.D., Ph.D., the center along with the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics has attracted a faculty from around the country who are considered experts in their fields.

This is the 14th year for the U.S. News & World Report list of “America’s Best Hospitals.” The rankings include 203 different medical centers, narrowed from 6,003 hospitals across the country, in 17 specialties.

“This is great news to be named to the list of top-50 geriatrics programs around the country out of a field of 6,003 hospitals,” Dr. Lipschitz said. “It is also gratifying this year to be moved up the list from 40th to 36th. We are certainly in good company on this list.”

Among other hospitals around the country named to the list of those providing the best geriatric care along with UAMS were UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, which was No. 1; Yale University in New Haven, Conn., at No. 7; New York University Medical Center at No. 21; Boston Medical Center, just below UAMS at No. 37; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at No. 48; and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit at No. 50.

According to U.S. News & World Report, ranked medical centers “excel for good reasons. For one, their doctors perform large numbers of tricky and risky procedures, and study after study shows that practice counts. The best also tend to adhere more closely to advanced treatment guidelines, to incorporate new findings into patient care and to conduct research that gives desperately ill patients additional options.”

The hospitals in the geriatrics listing received scores that equally weighed reputation; mortality; and a group of care-related factors, such as nursing care and technology available. The list of top programs was narrowed to 50. UAMS was ranked 36^th, up from 40th the previous year.

In determining a hospital’s ranking on reputation, 150 board-certified physicians were selected at random from the American Medical Association’s Masterfile of more than 800,000 doctors and were mailed survey forms. They were asked to list up to five hospitals they believe to be tops in their specialty, without considering location or cost. Surveys were also conducted in 2001 and 2002, of 150 and 180 physicians respectively per specialty. Reputational scores show the percentages of responding doctors in the three years who named the hospitals.

For mortality, the ratio compared the number of deaths from certain conditions of Medicare patients admitted in 1999, 2000 and 2001 with the number of deaths that would be expected after making adjustments for severity.

Most of the remaining data, such as nursing care and technology availability, came from the 2001 annual survey of hospitals by the American Hospital Association of which UAMS Medical Center is a long-standing member.

The “America’s Best Hospitals” methodology was devised in 1993 by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, which carries out the analysis and refines it as needed.

Links on This Page

UAMS Medical Center: http://www.uams.edu/medcenter/
America’s Best Hospitals: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/nycu/health/hosptl/tophosp.htm
Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging: http://centeronaging.uams.edu/
Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics: http://www.geriatrics.uams.edu/
UAMS Geriatrics Program: http://www.uams.edu/today/2003/042403/geriatricsprogram9th.htm
U.S. News: http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/071202/americasbest.htm

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