Leading the Way
in Patient Care

While all hospitals treat patients, an academic medical center — a hospital system affiliated with a university — does much more.  It also advances research, trains future doctors, and brings new discoveries into patient care.

UC San Diego Health is the only academic medical center in the San Diego region. Here, your doctors are also researchers and professors working to bring the latest medical breakthroughs directly to you. As a patient at UC San Diego Health, you can:  

• Gain access to clinical trials, innovative therapies and state-of-the-art technologies that may not be available elsewhere in the region
• Benefit from research-driven care by leaders in medicine
• Experience expert-led care that’s guided by science and centered on you

U.S. News & World Report builds its rankings on one of health care’s most comprehensive evaluation processes. The rankings measure factors that matter to you as a patient, including:

• Patient outcomes: Includes survival rates, how soon patients return home after treatment, and rates of preventable complications and readmissions  
• Patient experience: How patients rate their overall care and communication with their care team  
• Objective performance data: Based on more than 1.5 billion medical claims and records  
• Expert physician opinions: Board-certified specialists’ votes in select specialties 

Earning a Best Hospitals distinction takes extraordinary skill, dedication and clinical care — and we’re proud to deliver it to every patient, every day. Our multidisciplinary specialty teams are the forefront of innovation, bringing the latest discoveries to the personalized, collaborative care you can count on when you need it most. 

In addition to specialty rankings, U.S. News & World Report evaluates hospitals nationwide on their performance in 23 common conditions and procedures. 

In the 2026-27 ratings, U.C. San Diego Health is rated high performing in 22 of 23, meaning our outcomes significantly exceed the national average across nearly every category evaluated. Our high-performing conditions and procedures are:    

• Abdominal aortic aneurysm repair
• Acute kidney failure  
• Aortic valve surgery
• Colon cancer surgery 
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)  
• Diabetes  
• Ear, nose and throat surgery
• Gynecological cancer surgery  
• Heart arrhythmia  
• Heart attack  
• Heart bypass surgery
• Heart failure
• Hip fracture  
• Hip replacement  
• Knee replacement  
• Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma
• Lung cancer surgery
• Pacemaker implantation  
• Pneumonia
• Prostate cancer surgery  
• Stroke  
• Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR)

Whatever it is that brings you to UC San Diego Health, you can feel confident knowing you’ll receive exceptional care from a top-ranked academic health system that’s leading the way in patient care for you and your family.