Clinical Excellence: Quality and Patient Experience

Our commitment to excellent care

A golden arrow points to the word quality on a compass, representing true north for Scripps Health.

Our commitment to excellent care

For over 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

In June 2022, the Scripps Health system was 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. The organizations on this year’s 100 Top Hospitals and 15 Top Health Systems lists represent those that held up best against the pandemic’s ongoing stress test. They 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. The annual list recognizes excellence in clinical outcomes, operational efficiency and patient experience. Merative established the list to help identify top performance benchmarks that may help other healthcare organizations achieve consistent, balanced, and sustainable high performance.  


Leapfrog

Scripps Green Hospital, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas and Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego earned an “A” and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista earned a “B” (with a 0.1022 difference to an “A” score) for hospital safety from The Leapfrog Group in Spring 2022. All five hospitals campuses also received top grades for Fall 2022. Scripps Encinitas, Green, La Jolla and Mercy San Diego received A ratings in the fall report, while Scripps Mercy Chula Vista received a B rating — just missing an A rating by a 0.0054 difference. Our leadership team is committed to achieving top marks for all Scripps hospitals by reducing errors, injuries, accidents and infections. The Leapfrog Group is a nonprofit organization that promotes safety, quality and transparency in health care.


U.S. News Best Hospitals

For 2022-2023, 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 16 adult specialties and 19 procedures and conditions in order to determine the ranking. More than 4,500 hospitals are evaluated each year.


World’s Best Hospital list

In 2022, Newsweek named Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla to its World's Best Hospitals list for being a front-line leader in medicine's constantly evolving war against COVID-19.


Opioid Care Honor Roll

Scripps Health was named to the 2021 Opioid Care Honor Roll, which recognizes three tiers of performance: Superior Performance, Excellent Progress and Most Improved. All four of our hospitals — the Scripps Mercy Hospital campus, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla and Scripps Green Hospital — received Superior Performance recognition. 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. 


U.S. News & World Report Best in Nation in 5 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 2022-23 Best Hospitals list. The five specialties that Scripps Green and Scripps La Jolla rank in are orthopedics, cardiology and heart surgery, gynecology, urology, gastroenterology and GI surgery.


California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC)

In 2022, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista and Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego were recognized by the California Maternal Quality Care Collaborative (CMQCC). CMQCC is a nationally recognized maternal quality improvement group that focuses on improving hospital-based maternity care in California. CMQCC works collaboratively with stakeholders across the state to identify the key causes of maternal mortality and morbidity and, most importantly, develops tools to help hospitals improve maternal patient safety. Through our ongoing efforts and partnerships, CMQCC has helped California achieve one of the lowest overall maternal mortality rates in the country.


Newsweek List of Best Maternity Hospitals

In 2021 and 2022, Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas, Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego and Scripps Mercy Hospital Chula Vista were named on the Newsweek 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.


American Heart & Stroke Association Gold Plus Quality Achievement

In 2020, all five Scripps Health hospital campuses earned the Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. 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.


Newsweek America’s Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers

In 2022, Newsweek ranked Scripps among America's Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers. This year the list spotlights 470 facilities in the 25 states with the most ambulatory surgery centers. The Scripps ranked facilities are as follows:


  • Scripps Clinic Rancho Bernardo
  • Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley
  • Scripps Mercy Surgery Pavilion
  • Scripps Ambulatory Surgery Center - Ximed Building
  • Scripps Encinitas Surgery Center

Trauma center

In 2022, Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla was designated as a Level 1 trauma center, the highest designation awarded by the American College of Surgeons to indicate the highest range of injury care available to patients. Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla joins Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego, as Level 1 adult trauma centers in San Diego County.


Heart care

The Scripps heart program made the U.S. News national ranking for the 17th year in 2023, once again showing how Scripps is a leading provider of exceptional quality heart care in San Diego. The Prebys Cardiovascular Institute at Scripps is one of the largest, most advanced centers on the West Coast for cardiovascular medicine, research and training. Through a longtime partnership with Kaiser Permanente, Scripps also is the exclusive provider of cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology surgery to Kaiser Permanente members in the San Diego region. 

Physician quality

Physician quality

Scripps Coastal Medical Center physicians were presented the Excellence in Healthcare Award in 2020 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 and Scripps Coastal physicians 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. 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 2020, Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley Ambulatory Surgery Center received a 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.