Clinical Excellence: Quality and Patient Experience
Our commitment to excellent care
Our commitment to excellent care
For more than 100 years, the Scripps Health mission has been to deliver quality, safe and socially responsible health care. As part of that mission, we believe quality is not just a concept, but rather a core value embedded in all areas of our medical practice. It’s reflected in the attitudes, beliefs and principles that guide our doctors and staff. It’s also echoed in the rules and policies that ensure we are practicing safe patient care.
Clinical quality
Clinical quality
Fortune/Merative Top 15 Health Systems
Scripps Health system is recognized in the 2022 Fortune/Merative 15 Top Health Systems list. Our health system received the honor of being designated as one of the top performing health systems in the U.S. on the debut of the Fortune/Merative 100 Top Hospitals list achieved better results than peer institutions on performance indicators intended to measure clinical outcomes, operational efficiency, patient experience and financial health. Merative (formerly IBM Watson Health), a data, analytics and technology partner for the health industry, has identified the top health systems from a rigorous evaluation of 349 health systems and 3,206 hospitals that are members of health systems. Merative established the list to help identify top performance benchmarks that may help other healthcare organizations achieve consistent, balanced, and sustainable high performance.
Leapfrog
All five Scripps Health hospital campuses — Scripps Green Hospital, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista — earned an “A” grade for patient safety from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national watchdog organization.
Healthgrades’s Excellence Award
Healthgrades's 2023 Specialty Excellence Awards recognized Scripps’ hospitals 16 times in nine specialty areas and among them include a No. 1 ranking in California for Joint Replacement (Scripps Green Hospital) and Prostate Surgery (Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego).
Becker’s Hospital Review Great Hospitals in America
Becker’s Hospital Review named Scripps La Jolla Hospitals, including Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Green Hospital to its "Great Hospitals in America" list. These hospitals are known for clinical excellence, patient safety and more.
U.S. News Best Hospitals
For 2023-2024, Scripps was recognized in the annual U.S. News Best Hospitals rankings. The honor recognizes the nation’s top 50 hospitals that excel in treating patients with the most challenging health care needs. U.S. News evaluates hospitals in 15 adult specialties and 22 procedures and conditions in order to determine the rankings. More than 4,500 hospitals are evaluated each year.
U.S. News & World Report Best in Nation in Five Specialties
The combined programs of Scripps Green Hospital and Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla are ranked among the best in the nation in five specialties, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2023-24 Best Hospitals list. The five specialties that Scripps Green and Scripps La Jolla rank in are orthopedics; cardiology, heart and vascular surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; gastroenterology and GI surgery; and geriatrics.
World’s Best Cancer Hospital list
Newsweek named Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Green Hospital to their annual list of America's Best Cancer Hospitals for 2023. Awards were based on three data sources—a nationwide online survey, hospital quality metrics and patient experience.
Opioid Care Honor Roll
The California Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI)* awarded all of Scripps’s hospitals with the “sustained” award in the Opioid Care Honor Roll, which recognizes three tiers of performance: Superior Performance, Excellent Progress and Most Improved. We achieved Superior Performance previously and have maintained that performance. Hospitals achieving Superior Performance have implemented advanced, innovative opioid stewardship strategies across multiple service lines, consistently achieving the highest level of performance. In addition, these hospitals are actively measuring and monitoring performance for the purpose of continued quality improvement. *HCAI is a leader in collecting data and disseminating information about California's healthcare infrastructure, promoting an equitably distributed healthcare workforce, and publishing valuable information about healthcare outcomes.
Newsweek List of Best Maternity Hospitals
All Scripps hospitals with maternal child health services — Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas — are honored in Newsweek Magazine's 2023 list of Best Maternity Hospitals, for demonstrating excellence in maternity care. The facilities on this list met high standards for safety and quality of the care they provide to mothers and newborns.
California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC) Awards
Scripps hospitals earned CMQCC awards across multiple categories in 2023. Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista won the CMQCC Quality and Sustainability Award for NTSV Cesarean Birth Rate (PC-02). Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla won the CMQCC Quality and Sustainability Award for Maternal Safety Standards Implementation and the CMQCC MDC Superstar Award Large Birth Volume Hospitals. And Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas won the CMQCC MDC Superstar Award Medium Birth Volume Hospitals.
Newsweek America’s Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers
Newsweek’s America’s Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers list for 2023 recognized five Scripps ambulatory surgery centers in the top 40, including Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley, Scripps Clinic Rancho Bernardo, Scripps Mercy Surgery Pavilion, Scripps Ambulatory Surgery Center — XiMED and Scripps Encinitas Surgery Center.
Trauma center
Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla are designated as a Level 1 adult trauma centers, the highest designation awarded by the American College of Surgeons to indicate the highest range of injury care available to patients in San Diego County.
Heart care
American Heart & Stroke Association Gold Plus Quality Achievement
For the sixth consecutive year, the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA) awarded all five Scripps hospitals with the Stroke Gold Quality Achievement Award for 2023. The award recognizes hospitals that deliver high-quality, life-saving stroke care. The Joint Commission also certified our four Scripps emergency rooms as Primary Stroke Centers. This means our hospitals have the critical elements in place to achieve long-term success after stroke.
Fortune Magazine and Premier’s PINC AI Ranked Scripps as a Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospital
Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla ranked among the top 50 cardiovascular hospitals by Fortune magazine and Premier’s PINC AI, a health care improvement and technology company. Those in the top 50 operated at lower cost and had better outcomes, had significantly higher inpatient survival rates, fewer patients with complications, lower readmission rates and spent up to $5,076 less in total costs per patient case. If all hospitals operated at the level of the top 50, there would be 7,600 fewer deaths due to heart disease, 6,700 fewer patients with complications and more than $1 billion saved each year, according to the analysis.
Physician quality
Physician quality
Scripps Coastal Medical Center physicians were presented the Excellence in Healthcare Award in 2022 by the Integrated Healthcare Association. This award is given for achieving top marks in quality of care, patient satisfaction and cost management. The association also recognized Scripps Clinic Medical Group for performing in the top 10% of all participating California physician organizations in patient experience measurements.
Quality transparency
Quality transparency
With the California Hospital Association, the Hospital Quality Institute produces a dashboard of hospital safety scores that can be viewed by the public. The goal of these reports is transparency and quality improvement. Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Green Hospital and Scripps Encinitas received an overall rating of five out of five stars, for 2023. Review the most recent Quality Transparency Dashboards for Scripps hospitals (PDF, 1.7 MB).
Hospital comparison
Some patients like to make an informed decision by comparing hospitals. People who want to select a Medicare physician or hospital can use Medicare’s Care Compare. This online tool lets you search for and compare the quality of local hospitals.
Patient experience
Patient experience
We think of “patient experience” as every interaction you have with Scripps. For each patient and family member we see, we want you to feel supported as a member of the “Scripps family.” Our doctors and staff aim to provide the kind of service and compassion we would want to receive ourselves. We recognize excellence is more than a good outcome. Excellence is about the entire patient experience and ensuring it’s the best it can be every step of the way.
Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence award
In 2022, Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley Ambulatory Surgery Center, Scripps Clinic Torrey Pines and Scripps Coastal Medical Center received the Guardian of Excellence Award from Press Ganey for delivering an exceptional patient experience. This award represents the Scripps way of caring for patients every day.