MUSC Ranked State’s No. 1 Hospital Fourth Year in Row

Contact: Heather Woolwine
843-792-7669
woolwinh@musc.edu

August 4, 2018

CHARLESTON, SC – MUSC Health was named by U.S. News & World Report for the fourth year in a row as the number one hospital in South Carolina, and one of the country's top 25 hospitals in the treatment of ear, nose and throat (ENT) disorders, gynecology, and cancer. MUSC’s nephrology and orthopedics specialties also received national recognition, placing within the country’s top 50 hospitals for those services. MUSC was high-performing in gastroenterology & GI surgery, geriatrics, neurology & neurosurgery, pulmonology, rheumatology, and urology. See a more in-depth look at some of the ranked areas.

“For the fourth year in a row, MUSC has been named the number one hospital in South Carolina, once again being recognized for the high quality care and tremendous value that we provide our state,” said Patrick J. Cawley, M.D., MUSC Health CEO and MUSC vice president for health affairs, university. “Rankings certainly aren’t why health care providers do what they do every day, but I would say that they provide further validation of how hard we are working to put patients and their families first.”

U.S. News & World Report unveiled the 29th edition of the Best Hospitals rankings. Designed to help patients with life-threatening or rare conditions identify hospitals that excel in treating the most difficult cases, Best Hospitals 2018-19 includes consumer-friendly data and information on 4,500 medical centers nationwide in 25 specialties, procedures and conditions. In the 16 specialty areas, 158 hospitals were ranked in at least one specialty. In rankings by state and metro area, U.S. News recognized hospitals as high performing across multiple areas of care.

“Making these lists means we are finding new ways to deliver and improve patient care, we’re tearing down barriers to accessing that care, successfully training the health care leaders of tomorrow, and integrating our research discoveries in real-time whenever possible. The citizens of our state can take great pride and comfort in the knowledge that their only public, statewide hospital system is consistently cited as one of the best in the country,” Cawley said.

The U.S. News Best Hospitals methodologies in most areas of care are based largely or entirely on objective measures such as risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates, volume, patient experience, patient safety and quality of nursing, among other care-related indicators.

“For nearly 30 years, U.S. News has strived to make hospital quality more transparent to healthcare consumers nationwide,” said Ben Harder, managing editor and chief of health analysis at U.S. News. “By providing the most comprehensive data available, we give patients and their physicians’ information to support their search for the best care across a range of specialties.”

Best Hospitals was produced by U.S. News with RTI International, a leading research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

About MUSC Health

MUSC Health is the clinical enterprise of the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), comprised of a 700-bed medical center, the MUSC College of Medicine and the physician’s practice plan. It serves patients across South Carolina and beyond through four hospital facilities in Charleston and more than 100 outreach sites. Among these are the Hollings Cancer Center, the only National Cancer Institute-designated center in the state, and a nationally recognized Children’s Hospital. The Medical University was founded in 1824 and has become a premiere academic health sciences center at the forefront of the latest advances in medicine, with world-class physicians, scientists and groundbreaking research and technology that is often the first of its kind in the world. Visit muschealth.org for more information.