UAB Hospital

UAB Hospital, established in 1945, is the largest comprehensive medical facility in Alabama.  Encompassing five city blocks, 13 major buildings and 2.1 million square feet of space, it excels in the areas of emergency care transport, heart and kidney diseases, cancer, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, arthritis, organ transplantation, and cardiac surgery.  It is licensed for more than 900 beds and serves approximately 45,000 patients each year.  Because UAB Hospital is at the forefront of medical innovation, it draws referrals from community hospitals throughout Alabama, as well as many other states and a number of foreign countries.

The hospital continues to win praise in the community and around the world for providing excellent care.  The book, The Best in Medicine, ranked UAB Hospital among the best in the United States and 235 physicians who work with UAB Hospital earned a prestigious listing in the book The Best Doctors in America.

UAB Hospital has almost 900 of Alabama's most outstanding physicians on staff.  It received a 2005 Consumer Choice Award from the National Research Corporation.  One hundred seventy-four winning hospitals from 154 communities across the nation were selected. The recognition places UAB Hospital alongside such institutions as Johns Hopkins University Hospital, Duke University Medical Center, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, the Mayo Clinic, and Yale-New Haven Hospital.  Moreover, UAB Hospital also is among a select group of hospitals across the nation recognized as "centers for excellence in nursing.”  It was the first hospital in Alabama – and one of only 17 in the southeastern U.S. – to earn Magnet recognition, a designation awarded by the American Nurses Association to fewer than 210 of the nation's top 5,500 hospitals. 

In addition, seven UAB Hospital specialty programs ranked in the 2006 U.S. News & World Report annual “America's Best Hospitals” issue.  Rheumatology ranked 6th for an unprecedented 15th consecutive year; and heart and heart surgery were ranked 14th.  The annual rankings rate hospitals in 16 subspecialties.  In 11 of the 16 subspecialties, rankings are based on three equally rated criteria: reputation, death rate, and care-related factors such as nursing and patient services.  The others are ranked based on reputation, as recommended by three percent or more of board-certified physicians who responded to U.S. News’ surveys in 2004, 2005, and 2006.  Of 6,007 hospitals evaluated, only 176 scored high enough in the magazine’s 2006 survey to rank in even a single specialty.  Ranked UAB programs include: Cancer, ranked 23rd; Gynecology, ranked 14th; Heart and Heart Surgery, ranked 14th; Kidney Disease, ranked 17th; Orthopedics, ranked 47th; Respiratory Disorders, ranked 48th; and Rheumatology, ranked 6th.  Cardiology has been ranked for the past 11 years and gynecology for 8 years.

For seven consecutive years, UAB Hospital, as part of the UAB Health System, has been included in a listing of “Healthcare's 100 Most Wired."  Results of the 2006 Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study were published in Hospitals and Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association.  Hospitals are surveyed on their use of Internet technologies for safety and quality, customer service, disaster readiness, business processes, and workforce issues.  The "most wired" hospitals use computers to allow physicians to check or order patient tests, enter medication orders electronically, and allow patients to perform billing functions via computer.

UAB Hospital now has a new front door, assuring a commitment to world-class care for patients across Alabama and throughout the world, with the new UAB Hospital North Pavilion, which opened in November 2004.  The 885,000-foot, 11-story pavilion has 37 operating suites, two procedure rooms, three medical surgical units, four intensive care units – trauma and burn intensive care, surgical intensive care, neuroscience intensive care, and cardiovascular intensive care – and a 38,000 square foot emergency department and heliport.  This essential replacement facility provides a foundation for more efficient patient-care operations and the capacity to accommodate projected growth in patient care services.

 

 

Approved by:  Kyle Buchanan, Administrative Fellow

Date:  September 29, 2006 (Update requested)

 

 

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