7
Duke University Hospital
Durham
Beds: 957 | 2018 rank: 11 |
President: Thomas Owens
A top U.S. research hospital — its affiliated medical school was awarded more than $356 million in National Institutes of Health grants in 2017 — Duke also earns high marks with patients: 87% said they would recommend the hospital to others, per Medicare data compiled for this report. Duke hosts more than 1 million outpatient visits annually.
Challenge: While it dominates Durham County and benefits from an international reputation, Duke Health’s Wake County operations are smaller than rivals WakeMed and UNC Health Care. Expansion plans in west Cary were hobbled in January when the state denied Duke’s proposal to add four operating rooms as part of a planned 1 million-square-foot facility.
METHODOLOGY: Business North Carolina’s 2019 Best Hospitals list is calculated by the hospitals’ performance in 25 metrics, including information provided by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We examine patient-satisfaction surveys, rates of commonly acquired hospital infections, and readmission and death rates for common procedures. Also considered are safety report cards from The Leapfrog Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, and ratings from insurer Blue Cross and Blue Shield and U.S. News & World Report. We rank the state’s adult, acute-care medical centers with at least 50 beds, excluding specialty and psychiatric hospitals.
Click here to view the 2019 list of North Carolina’s Best Hospitals.