USF Health physicians lead six of the 12 recognized specialty areas at TGH, named top hospital in
Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area

U.S. News & World Report has ranked Tampa General Hospital, the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s major teaching hospital, as the number two hospital in Florida and the best hospital in the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro area for 2014-2015.  USF Health partners Moffitt Cancer Center and All Children’s Hospital also made the top-50 list for their respective rankings as cancer  and pediatric hospitals.

USF Health faculty physicians lead six of the 12 specialty areas at TGH recognized in the latest U.S. News Best Hospitals rankings.

Now in its 25^th year, the list recognizes hospitals that excel in treating the most challenging patients — those whose illnesses pose unusual challenges due to underlying conditions, procedure difficulty, or other medical issues.  Many of the top-ranked hospitals are affiliated with academic health centers.

TGH was listed as one of the top 50 hospitals nationally in the following four medical specialties: Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Nephrology, Orthopedics and Urology. Dr. John T. Sullebarger, chief of cardiology at TGH, and Dr. Stephen Rifkin, chief of nephrology at TGH, are full-time USF Health faculty members.

In addition, TGH received “high performing” ratings in eight medical specialties: Cancer; Diabetes & Endocrinology; Ear, Nose & Throat; Gastroenterology & GI surgery; Geriatrics; Gynecology; Neurology & Neurosurgery; and Pulmonology.  USF Health faculty members lead four of these TGH high-performing specialty areas – Dr. Yasser Saloum, chief of gastroenterology; Dr. Tapan Padhya, chief of otolaryngology (ENT)/head & neck surgery; Dr. Karen Bruder, chief of obstetrics & gynecology; and Dr. Rossitza Chichkova, chief of neurology, and Dr. Fernando Vale, chief of neurological surgery.

Tampa General, was joined on the U.S. News Best Hospitals list by two other USF Health partners for teaching and research.

Moffitt Cancer Center made the top 10 list of Florida’s best hospitals (6^th). In addition based on the U.S  News ranking for top cancer hospitals, Moffitt was listed as the number one cancer hospital in the Southeast.  All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg was ranked as one of the top 50 pediatric hospitals in three specialties: cancer, cardiology and heart surgery, and orthopedics.

U.S. News evaluates hospitals in 16 adult specialties. In most specialties, it ranks the nation’s top 50 hospitals and recognizes other high-performing hospitals that provide care at nearly the level of their nationally ranked peers.

Just 3 percent of the nearly 5,000 hospitals analyzed made the list in at least one specialty.

U.S. News publishes Best Hospitals to help guide patients who need a high level of care because they face particularly difficult surgery, a challenging condition, or added risk because of other health problems or age. Patient survival and safety data, the adequacy of nurse staffing levels and other data largely determined the rankings in most specialties, according to U.S. News..

The specialty rankings and data were produced for U.S. News by RTI International; a leading research organization based in Research Triangle Park, N.C. Using the same data, U.S. News produced the state and metro rankings.

The rankings are available online at http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals and will appear in the U.S. News “Best Hospitals 2015” guidebook, available August.