Clinical Excellence Awards and Reports

America's 250 Best Hospitals Award™ (2024, 2023, 2022)

Top 5% in the nation for consistently delivering clinical quality

The U.S. News & World Report ranks Stanford Health Care among the nation's highest-rated hospitals. For 2023-2024, Stanford Hospital was ranked: 

• #1 in the San Jose, California, metropolitan area
• #3 in California
• #7 in the nation for Pulmonary and Lung Surgery
• #9 in the nation for Cardiology, Heart and Vascular Surgery
• Nationally ranked Best Hospitals Honor Roll
• "High Performing" for aortic valve surgery; abdominal aortic aneurysm repair; heart bypass surgery; heart failure; heart attack; transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR); and lung surgery
   

The Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is also ranked among the nation’s top children's hospitals according to the 2023–24 U.S. News & World Report Best Children's Hospitals annual survey. The children's hospital ranked nationally in cardiology and heart surgery.

The U.S. News & World Report annually updates its Best Hospitals rankings to help patients find the best care. These ratings and rankings are based on each hospital's patient outcomes and other factors that matter to patients, like the quality of their experience and whether the hospital is adequately staffed. They also publish two Honor Rolls, one for children's hospitals and one for all other hospitals, to recognize hospitals performing exceptionally well across many specialties, procedures, and conditions.

Learn more about the rankings: https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals

The American Heart Association and the Mitral Foundation have recognized Stanford Health Care as a reference center for mitral valve repair surgery.  Stanford Health Care was the first hospital in the West to receive the Mitral Valve Repair Reference Center award, a collaborative recognition program of the AHA and Mitral Foundation. This is the fourth consecutive year that Stanford Health Care has achieved this recognition (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) since the program launched in November of 2019.

The award recognizes best practices in mitral valve repair to treat severe mitral valve prolapse. The two organizations established the designation to provide objective data to encourage more patients to receive valve repair rather than mitral valve replacement.  It also guides referring physicians to the best options for their patience with mitral valve problems.

Stanford Medicine was ranked in the top 10% of comprehensive academic medical centers for inpatient and outpatient care by Vizient, a national health care performance improvement organization. Stanford Medicine earned "5 Star" status in the Vizient Quality and Accountability Ranking — a notable achievement, given the difficulty medical centers have faced during the coronavirus pandemic, according to David Levine, senior vice president of analytics and data science at Vizient.

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) has developed a comprehensive rating system for Mitral Valve Repair & Replacement surgical procedures that allows for comparisons regarding the quality of isolated mitral valve surgery among hospitals across the country. Only 12-15% of hospitals in the US received the highest STS "3 Star" quality rating, which denotes hospital performance significantly better than expected. In the analysis of national data regarding Mitral Valve Repair & Replacement covering the period from January 2020 through December 2022, the cardiac surgery performance of Stanford Health Care was found to lie in this highest quality tier, thereby receiving an STS "3 Star" rating. 

Stanford Health Care has again been awarded Magnet Recognition for nursing excellence by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), the highest national honor given for nursing in the United States. The ANCC Magnet Recognition Program^® has become the gold standard for nursing excellence and identifies health care organizations who demonstrate superior quality in nursing care, patient care, and innovations in professional nursing practice. This is the fourth consecutive time Stanford Health Care has achieved this recognition, which is awarded every four years.

Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford has again achieved Magnet recognition. This designation reflects its exemplary professional nursing practice, interprofessional teamwork and preeminent patient care. The American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program® distinguishes organizations that meet rigorous standards for nursing excellence. This credential is the highest national honor for professional nursing practice. Less than 10 percent of US health care organizations out of 6,129 hospitals are Magnet designated. Stanford Children’s first achieved Magnet recognition in 2019. Health care organizations must reapply for recognition every four years. The process involves providing documented evidence to demonstrate how staff members sustained and improved Magnet concepts, performance indicators, and quality ratings over the four-year period since the organization received its initial recognition.

The Leapfrog Group gave Stanford Health Care an A for safety in its 2021 semiannual assessment. The grade is based on more than 30 safety measures, including infection control, communication among medical team members and prevention of patient falls.

This report shows the risk adjusted 30-day mortality rate (RAMR) for the most commonly performed cardiac procedures in the United States. Patients coming to Stanford Health Care consistently have a decreased chance of mortality as compared to the average national hospital.

Isolated Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (IsoCABG) means that no other operative procedures were performed along with the coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG). Stanford Health Care surgeons are experienced in performing "off-pump," minimally invasive and robotic surgery, as well as CABG surgery combined with percutaneous coronary intervention in consultation with Interventional Cardiologists to meet each patient's needs to insure the best outcomes and post-operative quality of life.

This risk adjusted isolated aortic valve replacement 30-day mortality (IsoAVR RAMR) report includes replacement with both mechanical and bioprosthetic valves where no other procedure is performed. Surgeons at Stanford Health Care (SHC) will discuss with each patient the pros and cons of each valve type in relation to their individual aortic valve pathology. The patient is part of the decision-making process in choosing the replacement valve that will provide the best outcomes as well as suit their lifestyles. Stanford is one of the most experienced minimally invasive Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) programs on the west coast. TAVR is now approved for a larger diverse group of patients in addition to the high-risk patient previously determined not a surgical candidate. Stanford cardiac surgeons in collaboration with Interventional Cardiology discuss all available surgical options with our patients to determine the best individual treatment plan.

Stanford's goal is to comprehensively evaluate a patient's suitability for all types of aortic valve interventions to provide the most effective treatment options with the goal to improve and prolong quality and duration of life.

Stanford Health Care has performed over 2,100 minimally invasive transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) procedures since the onset of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services-sponsored PARTNER Clinical Trials in 2008. As the clinical success of TAVR has been demonstrated over time, more patients than ever can be evaluated and approved by a multidisciplinary heart team for entry into the TAVR program. At the present time, eligibility has been extended to not only include patients with intermediate, moderate, and extreme risk, but it now offers low risk patients accessibility to TAVRs as well, giving patients more procedural options to the traditional open heart surgical valve procedures.

More information about the PARTNER trial:

• Stanford TAVR Program
• Stanford Transcatheter Heart Valve Program
• New treatment for severe aortic stenosis shown to save lives, researchers say
• PARTNER Trial Treatment for Severe Aortic Stenosis

Mitral valve disease is a serious condition often requiring surgical valve replacement or repair. Mitral valve repair is associated with better patient outcomes, and Stanford surgeons will repair the mitral valve unless replacement is absolutely necessary. Stanford has dedicated research laboratories continually evaluating the best surgical techniques and equipment for mitral valve surgery.

SHC surgeons are experienced in performing minimally invasive mitral valve procedures when indicated for best patient outcomes. Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement surgery (TMVR) and Mitral Valve Repair surgery (MitraClip) are available for the high-risk patient previously determined not a surgical candidate in collaboration with interventional cardiology.

A Tirone David V with Stanford modification valve-sparing aortic root replacement (VSARR) operation utilizes the native aortic valve so the patient doesn't need life-long anti-coagulation therapy. This is a great benefit to patients with Marfan Syndrome or a bicuspid aortic valve, particularly the young and middle-aged. A composite valve graft (CVG) procedure combines either a mechanical or bioprosthetic valve built into the replacement section of the aortic root, usually combined with an ascending aorta replacement graft. Stanford's surgeons thoroughly evaluate each individual patient's pathology and lifestyle and allow each individual to help choose the best surgical procedure for the best long-term outcome. Stanford's thoracic aortic surgical team has performed more Tirone David procedures than any other hospital in the western United States. Stanford University's Center for Marfan Syndrome and Related Aortic Disorders is used as a model around the world.

Stanford's long history of performing and improving upon VSARR operations is reflected in our mortality outcomes. Since 1993, in our history of performing this procedure (electively or urgently), the mortality rate has been less than 1%, with no 30-day operative mortality within the last seventeen years. A comparison with the 2021 STS risk adjusted national mortality rate of 2.47% for basic isolated aortic valve replacement highlights Stanford surgeons' ability to perform complex aortic procedures with lower risk than hospitals that perform less complex cardiac procedures.