Children’s National Medical Center, Home to the Sheikh Zayed Institute, Again Ranked Among Best Children’s Hospitals
Abu Dhabi, UAE; 15th June, 2013: Children’s National Medical Center, home of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation on the Sheikh Zayed Campus for Advanced Pediatric Medicine in Washington, D.C., has again been ranked among the United States’ best pediatric hospitals by U.S. News & World Report. U.S. News & World Report is an 80-year old multi-platform publisher of news and information which has earned a reputation as the leading provider of service news and information focusing on health, personal finance, education, travel, cars, news and opinion.
Children’s National has been ranked in all 10 specialty areas covered in U.S. News & World Report’s survey, making it one of very few institutions to have achieved this level of recognition. Children’s National has recently received significant international press for its work in developing new treatment approaches for pain medicine, cardiovascular disease, mental health and diabetes. This includes new scientific and medical discoveries developed in the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, which was created through a gift of $150 million from the government of Abu Dhabi.
This year is the third year in a row that Children’s National Medical Center has been ranked among the best pediatric hospitals by the highly reputed U.S. News & World Report’s Best Children’s Hospitals survey. The rankings are a further testament to the ground-breaking work being achieved at Children’s National.
“The collaboration between the government of Abu Dhabi, Children’s National Medical Center and the Sheikh Zayed Institute has played a large part in ensuring that we remain a leader and a destination of choice for world-class pediatric healthcare,” said Kurt Newman, MD, President and CEO of Children’s National. “It is an honor to be ranked again among the very best children’s hospitals in the US. This continued recognition highlights our commitment to providing the highest quality of care to our children and families.”
Each year, Children’s National Medical Center provides care for children from more than 20 countries around the world, including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Additionally, Children’s state of the art telemedicine technology allows doctors in Washington, D.C., to share information with more than 100 partnership sites in 14 countries, including United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Morocco and Qatar.
Research and innovation is at the core of Children’s National Medical Center; one of the major achievements since the close relationship was forged between the center and the government of Abu Dhabi has been the establishment of the Pain Medicine Care Complex, an outpatient program which uses one-of-its-kind multisensory technology to treat pain among children. The Complex – which opened in January 2013 – is the latest direct result of research and development undertaken at the Sheikh Zayed Institute, and is a key accomplishment toward the vision of the Sheikh Zayed Institute, which aims to find ways to reduce or eliminate pain in children. Today, the Complex incorporates patented equipment and technology to diagnose and treat young patients affected by previously unassigned and ambiguous pain.
Additionally, the spirit of innovation is bolstered by the Sheikh Zayed Student Innovators Summer Program – also funded by the government of Abu Dhabi. This program—in keeping with Abu Dhabi’s 2030 Economic Vision for sustainability in the healthcare sector –-has allowed students from the UAE and beyond to intern at the Sheikh Zayed Institute and experience how creativity allows for continued progress in global pediatric healthcare. To date, the Program has attracted eight Bioengineering students to the program over the last two years. Additionally, the Institute is enabling students to experience first-hand how knowledge and information sharing supports innovation in the pediatric healthcare sector with their attendance at the Symposium on Pediatric Innovation, which brings together policymakers, clinicians, lawyers, scientists, and bioethicists from around the world to discuss the critical issues in pediatric surgical innovation and device development.
In addition to the U.S. News & World Report ranking, Children’s National is also recognized by the prestigious Leapfrog Group. For the sixth consecutive year, Children’s National has been acknowledged on their elite Top Hospitals List. Children’s National is one of only a handful of children’s hospitals consistently ranked by both U.S. News and the Leapfrog Group. Furthermore, Children’s National ranks among the top seven among children’s hospitals in pediatric research funding from the National Institutes of Health.
U.S. News introduced the Best Children’s Hospitals rankings in 2007 to help families of sick children find the best medical care available, offering families an exclusive look at quality-related information at the individual hospital level. The survey, which highlights the top 50 US hospitals in 10 different pediatric specialties, has officially ranked Children’s National Medical Center in every one of its 10 categories. The pediatric specialties are: cancer, cardiology & heart surgery, diabetes & endocrinology, gastroenterology & GI surgery, neonatology, nephrology, neurology & neurosurgery, orthopedics, pulmonology, and urology. Specifically, in neonatology, neurology & neurosurgery, and urology, Children’s National ranked among the top 10 pediatric institutions in the United States.
In this year’s rankings, three-quarters of each hospital’s score was determined through an analysis of patient outcomes and data on the structural resources each hospital has for pediatric care. To gather data, U.S. News used two surveys: a clinical questionnaire sent to 179 pediatric hospitals and, for the reputational assessment, a survey of 150 pediatric specialists and subspecialists in each specialty. The 1,500 (150 for each of the 10 specialties covered in this survey) physicians were asked where they would send the sickest children in their specialty, setting aside location and expense.
Details about the rankings can be found on the U.S. News & World Report website now or in the print edition, available in mid-August 2013.
