Company Profile
UW Medical Center
Company Overview
University of Washington Medical Center is one of the nation's leading academic medical centers, which provides highly specialized medical care in areas such as cardiology, high-risk pregnancy and neonatal intensive care, oncology, orthopaedics and organ transplantation. Patients travel from across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho for these specialized services.
U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 America’s Best Hospitals ranked UW Medical Center twelfth in the nation and has named the hospital among the country’s best since the rankings began in 1993. The medical center also was named the nation’s first Magnet Hospital for excellence in nursing care by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, which has continued to honor UWMC with this award every four years since 1994.
UW Medical Center is part of the UW Medicine health-care system, which also includes Harborview Medical Center, the UW School of Medicine, UW Neighborhood Clinics and Airlift Northwest, a specialized emergency transport program.
UW Medical Center partners with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s through the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance to provide the most advanced cancer diagnosis and treatment available.
Company History
Over the last 50 years, University of Washington Medical Center has been recognized as a world-class health-care organization known for our medical discoveries, teaching programs and, above all, the compassionate care we provide to patients every day.
UWMC was named as a top 10 hospital in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospital Honor Roll in 2008. UW biomedical research programs rank the highest among public research universities in the receipt of National Institutes of Health grant funding. Our School of Medicine has been ranked by U.S. News as the No. 1 primary care medical school in the country for 16 consecutive years.
UWMC has received the Washington State Quality Award twice, most recently at the Leadership Level. Patients ranked UWMC highest among all hospitals in the Puget Sound area on overall care in a national patient satisfaction survey.
Many medical discoveries that are now the standard of care throughout the world were developed at UWMC. Our physicians developed the use of the Doppler ultrasound to detect vascular disease, a shunt that made long-term kidney dialysis possible, and the multistage treadmill test, which has become a standard way of evaluating heart problems.
More than 10 years ago, UWMC, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s formed the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance as a way to provide the most advanced cancer care and research to patients. The partnership fosters cancer discoveries and provides a comprehensive continuum of care for our patients by sharing UW School of Medicine faculty to provide care and services at all sites. Many outpatient medical oncology services are provided at the SCCA building near South Lake Union while UWMC houses the oncology-related surgical clinics, treating patients that require surgery or hospitalization. Both UWMC and SCCA provide advanced imaging and radiation oncology services. Pediatric patients from Seattle Children’s receive specialized radiation oncology treatment at UWMC.
As an academic medical center, the UWMC is an exceptional training environment for our future generations of physicians and allied health-care professionals. We are a regional resource, as patients travel from across Washington and from Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho for the highly specialized health care we provide.
While discovery is an important part of our mission, patient care is at the heart. We focus on patient- and family-centered care, always placing the patient first in all we do. Patients, their families, and the team of health care professionals are all involved in making decisions at every point throughout their care.
To continue to serve our patients, we are expanding our building, and we will break ground this year on a new five story addition, which will include a new NICU that will care for up to 50 babies. We will be able to treat more patients with an additional 32-bed adult acute care unit. The expansion will have more space for diagnostic imaging, including additional MRI machines, CT scanners, and new interventional radiology rooms.
Medical discovery is founded on the compassion we have for patients and our mission of improving the health of the public. As we look forward to the next 50 years, UWMC is focused on patient safety, quality of care and providing superior service to our patients and families.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
University of Washington Medical Center’s exceptional performance was noted in the U.S News & World Report's 2009 rankings of “America’s Best Hospitals,” released in July 2009. UWMC was ranked as the 12th best hospital in the country.
Of the nation's 4,861 hospitals considered for this year's survey, only 174 scored high enough to be ranked in even one of 16 specialty areas. UW Medical Center ranked 12th in the nation and was among just 21 hospitals qualified to be listed in the 2009 Honor Roll for achieving high scores in six or more specialties.
Several UW Medicine programs were ranked highly including: rehabilitation (3) (based at UWMC and Harborview Medical Center); cancer (6); ear, nose and throat (12); geriatric care (14) (based at Harborview Medical Center); gynecology (15); orthopaedics at UWMC (15); respiratory disorders (16); kidney disorders (16); orthopaedics at Harborview Medical Center (18); diabetes and endocrine disorders (20); rheumatology (22); digestive disorders (25); neurology/neurosurgery (25) (based at Harborview and UWMC); and urology (30).
UW Medical Center has been rated among the top U.S. hospitals every year since U.S. News began rankings in 1990.