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Awards and Achievements

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UCLA Health System can claim a number of awards and achievements that distinguish our organization as a leading provider of healthcare services not only in the United States, but in the world.  Some of our most recent distinctions include—

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has earned Magnet Status for Nursing Excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.  Through the Magnet Recognition Program, organizations are evaluated based compliance with specific quality indicators and standards of nursing practice, which include maintaining appropriate nurse staffing ratios, involving nurses in decision-making processes and supporting continuing education and competence for nurses.

 

  • According to U.S.News and World Report's America's Best Hospital Honor Roll, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center ranks as one of the top five hospitals in the nation and, for 23 consecutive years, as the best hospital in the western United States.  UCLA's nationally recognized programs based in Westwood and in Santa Monica have been ranked among the top 20 in 14 of the 16 medical specialties.

 

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has been named one of America's 50 best hospitals by Becker's Hospital Review. The award recognizes UCLA for putting patients' needs first, driving a variety of innovations and helping to set the bar for high quality care.

 

  • UCLA Medical Group has been awarded Certification in Credentialing and Recredentialing through the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Physician Organization Certification Program. UCLA Medical Group most recently received the certification through 2014 and has consistently qualified since 2002.

    NCQA certification programs are generally designed to help health plans and employers make informed decisions when choosing their business partners. Certification involves a voluntary review process and a nationally recognized evaluation that managed-care organizations and purchasers of healthcare use to assess physician organizations. NCQA evaluates clinical and administrative systems in order to improve healthcare for its members. An organization must meet rigorous standards to achieve NCQA certification. The award signifies UCLA's commitment to delivering effective, efficient and patient care.

 

  • UCLA Medical Group is on the 2011 honor roll of California medical groups that have met the Right Care Initiative's gold level of achievement. The California Department of Managed Health Care launched its Right Care Initiative (RCI) in 2007 as a public-private collaborative effort to improve clinical quality in three key areas: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hospital-acquired infections, and to rank among the best in the nation on critical metrics of how well care is being managed. For the first time researchers affiliated with the RCI and the Integrated Medical Association analyzed California's medical group scores for comparison to RCI goals and UCLA Medical Group has met or exceeded the following levels of achievement based on national HEDIS 90th Percentile targets: 70% of patients with cardiovascular conditions with lipids controlled: LDL-C < 100 mg/dL, 70% of diabetic patients with blood sugar controlled: HbA1c <8 and 55% of diabetic patients with lipids controlled: LDL-C < 100 mg/dL.

 

  • UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has been named one of 70 Hospitals and Health Systems with Great Oncology Program by Becker's Hospital Review. This award recognizes hospitals across the country that serve as leaders in cancer research, prevention, treatment and education.

    • UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA Medical Center is one of the largest National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the country. It includes more than 240 physicians and scientists and sees upwards of 20,000 patient visits each year. President Barack Obama recently named UCLA cancer researcher Owen Witte, MD, to the President's Cancer Panel, which monitors the National Cancer Program's progress. UCLA's care spans beyond cancer treatment to encompass the entire cancer experience. In partnership with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the UCLA-Livestrong Survivorship Center of Excellence provides a plethora of resources to cancer survivors.

     

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center received the Get With The Guidelines® Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. The recognition signifies that UCLA has reached an exceptional goal of treating heart failure patients according to the guidelines of care recommended by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology.

 

  • National Research Corporation has selected Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as a recipient of its 2012 Path to Excellence award for Top Performance in HCAHPS ‘Rate Hospital’ category among hospitals with a bed size of 300 or more. National Research selected Path to Excellence award recipients based on their achievement within categories that patients have identified as being most important to the quality of their care. The winners were selected from the extensive database of National Research hospital customers for performance over the four quarters, Q3 2011-Q2 2012.

 

  • The UCLA Division of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery has received a "3 star" rating from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). STS has developed a comprehensive rating system for the quality of cardiac surgery among hospitals across the country. Approximately 14 percent of hospitals received the "3 star" rating, which denotes the highest category of quality. In the current analysis of national data covering the period from July 2010 to June 2011, the cardiac surgery performance of our hospital was found to lie in the highest quality tier, thereby receiving an STS 3 star rating.

 

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has received the American College of Cardiology Foundation's NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award for 2011 - one of only 167 hospitals nationwide to do so. The quality-improvement program recognizes UCLA's commitment and success in implementing a higher standard of care for heart attack patients, and signifies that the hospital has reached an aggressive goal of treating these patients.

    To receive the ACTION Registry-GWTG Gold Performance Achievement Award, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center consistently followed the treatment guidelines in ACTION Registry-GWTG for 8 consecutive quarters and met a performance standard of 85% for specific performance measures. Following these treatment guidelines empowers health care provider teams to consistently treat heart attack patients according to the most current, science-based guidelines and establishes a national standard for understanding and improving the quality, safety and outcomes of care provided for patients with coronary artery disease, specifically high-risk STEMI and NSTEMI patients.

 


  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has been named among America's "100 Hospitals With Great Women's Health Programs" by Beckers Hospital Review, citing the accomplshment of the department of obstetrics and gynecology,  UCLA's women's health researchers and physicians, and the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women's Health Center.

 

  • The Leapfrog Group named Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as a 2007 Leapfrog Top Hospital based on results from the annual Leapfrog Hospital Quality and Safety Survey, a rating system that provides one of the most complete assessments of U.S. hospital quality and safety.  Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center is the only hospital in the Los Angeles area to make the most recent list.


  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association's Get With The Guidelines® Stroke Gold Plus Performance Achievement Award. The award recognizes UCLA's commitment and success in implementing excellent care for stroke patients, according to evidence-based guidelines. 

    To receive the award, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center achieved 85 percent or higher adherence to all Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Performance Achievement indicators for two or more consecutive 12-month intervals and achieved 75 percent or higher compliance with six of 10 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Measures, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care. 

    These measures include aggressive use of medications, such as tPA, antithrombotics, anticoagulation therapy, DVT prophylaxis, cholesterol reducing drugs and smoking cessation, all aimed at reducing death and disability and improving the lives of stroke patients.

 

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center received the American Heart Association's Get With The Guidelines® Heart Failure Silver Performance Achievement Award. The recognition signifies that UCLA has reached an aggressive goal of treating heart failure patients with 85 percent compliance for one year to core standard levels of care as outlined by the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology secondary prevention guidelines for heart failure patients, which are reporting initiatives to measure quality of care.

    The guidelines include aggressive use of risk-reduction therapies such as cholesterol-lowering drugs, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, aspirin, diuretics and anticoagulants in the hospital. Heart failure patients also receive alcohol/drug use and thyroid management counseling as well as referrals for cardiac rehabilitation before being discharged, all aimed to improve the quality of care provided to heart failure patients, save lives and ultimately, reduce healthcare costs by lowering the recurrence of heart attacks.

 

  • The National Cancer Institute has designated the Lung Cancer Program at UCLA Health System's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), making it one of only a handful of programs nationwide to receive national recognition and substantial research funding to improve prevention, detection and treatment of lung cancer. The goal is to translate basic research from the lab into patient care much more quickly and effectively.

  • The National Cancer Institute designated the UCLA Health System's Prostate Cancer Program as a Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in 2002, distinguishing the program as one of a few institutions nationwide tapped to improve prevention, detection and treatment of the disease. UCLA is the only SPORE site in Southern California and one of only three in the western United States. The designation came with an $11.5 million grant to enhance the program's ability to bring together laboratory and clinical researchers in a joint effort to improve the detection, treatment and prevention of prostate cancer.

 

  • National Institutes of Health (NIH) has designated UCLA Health System's Prostate Cancer and Kidney Cancer programs Centers of Excellence according to NIH guidelines.

 

 

  • American Alliance of Healthcare Providers (AAHP) recognized Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center as one of America's Most Customer-Friendly Hospitals in the organization's Hospital of Choice Award for 2007-2008.

 

  • Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica rank among the top three hospitals in Los Angeles County for the highest percentages of mothers discharged from the hospital while exclusively feeding their babies with breast milk.  In addition to comprehensive breastfeeding education, for the past 10 years Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has practiced total "rooming in", which means that mothers are never separated from their babies from the time of birth until mother and child are discharged from the hospital, unless a medical problem exists.

  • UCLA Medical Group is a qualified data registry under the 2009 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), a Medicare pay-for-reporting program.  UCLA Medical Group is one of only 10 organizations in the nation affiliated with teaching or academic medical centers to earn this designation from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).