University of Washington Medical Center (Seattle). When University of Washington Medical Center opened as University Hospital in 1959, it was one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the country. Years later, UW Medicine is one of the most influential academic health systems in the Northwest: Patients travel from across Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho to receive care there.
U.S. News & World Report has ranked UW Medical Center as the No. 1 hospital in Washington and a top hospital in the country for multiple specialties, including rehabilitation (No. 4), cancer care (No. 6), diabetes and endocrinology (No. 10), and nephrology (No 12). In 1994, UW Medical Center was the first organization in the nation to receive Magnet designation for nursing excellence from the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The hospital has received the designation every four years since.
This spring, UW Medical Center received approval from the United Network for Organ Sharing to perform face and hand transplants, making it one of 20 hospitals across the country with the ability to do so. The first transplants could occur within the year. UW Medical Center physicians already perform heart, liver, lung, kidney-pancreas and multi-organ transplantations. UW Medicine's transplant team is also experienced at planning and performing sophisticated living-donor transplants —more than 700 living donor nephrectomies have been performed there.
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