Awards & Recognition

Beginning in 1990, U.S. News & World Report has ranked our nation's leading hospitals annually. And in every one of those years, TIRR Memorial Hermann has been named among the very best rehabilitation hospitals in the United States. TIRR Memorial Hermann ranks best in Texas and No. 3 in the nation for rehabilitation.

Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center was also listed in the U.S. News rankings in the specialty areas of Cardiology & Heart Surgery, Ear, Nose & Throat, and Gastroenterology and GI Surgery. Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital was nationally ranked in Pediatric Cardiology and Heart Surgery, as well as Pediatric Neurology and Neurosurgery.

The American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC) has granted Magnet® recognition for excellence in nursing to five campuses: Memorial Hermann Greater Heights, Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. Only 6.2% of U.S. healthcare organizations have achieved this honor.

Memorial Hermann was recognized as a Top Workplace in Houston, as reported by the Houston Chronicle. Memorial Hermann ranked No. 19 among Large Companies and is the highest ranking healthcare provider in the category. The annual rankings recognize the top 150 workplaces in the Houston area based on employee surveys.

Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center (TMC) and Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center earned national recognition as top performers for superior quality and safety by the Vizient Quality and Accountability Study.

Memorial Hermann-TMC received the 2018 Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award for Academic Medical Centers, and ranked ninth of 99 participating academic medical centers.

Memorial Hermann Memorial City received the 2018 Bernard A. Birnbaum, MD, Quality Leadership Award for Complex Teaching Medical Centers, ranking seventh among 100 participating teaching medical centers.

In 2018, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital received designation as a Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program (MBSAQIP) Center by the American College of Surgeons (ACS). Memorial Hermann Sugar Land affiliated surgeons perform more than 400 laparoscopic bariatric procedures each year, including gastric banding (lap band), gastric sleeve, gastric bypass and duodenal switch, and even the most difficult bariatric surgery revisions and reversals. ACS designates MBSAQIP Centers as metabolic and bariatric surgery programs with a demonstrated track record of favorable outcomes for weight loss surgery.

Memorial Hermann Health System once again earned a spot on the list of the country’s “Most Wired” health systems, achieving the recognition based on a survey of hospitals across the nation. The list, compiled from a survey conducted by Health & Hospitals Network (H&HN) in partnership with the American Hospital Association, annually recognizes hospitals and other healthcare facilities that are successfully using technology to improve patient care, better manage population health and become more efficient. The review of hundreds of hospitals serves as an industry benchmark to measure the use and adoption of information technology (IT) across the health sector.

Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Heart-Check mark for Advanced Certification for Primary Stroke Centers in 2018. The hospital earned this distinction after the Joint Commission conducted an on-site review. Joint Commission experts evaluated compliance with stroke-related standards and requirements, including program management, the delivery of clinical care and performance improvement.

Memorial Hermann Health System was recognized as a 2018 Pinnacle of Excellence® Award winner for maintaining high levels of excellence over multiple years for employee engagement. The Pinnacle of Excellence award honors organizations that have maintained high levels of excellence in patient experience, engagement or clinical quality performance. To be eligible, organizations must receive a 50 percent or higher response rate in overall participation.

TIRR Memorial Hermann also received the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) Award for Nursing Excellence® from Press Ganey, an award that recognizes the top-performing rehabilitation hospital that has achieved excellence in overall performance in nursing quality indicators.Press Ganey’s NDNQI Award for Outstanding Nursing Quality honors hospitals that have made measurable improvements in nursing performance and patient outcomes. The award is given annually to the top performing organization across 17 quality measures in each of seven categories: academic medical center, teaching hospital, community hospital, pediatric hospital, rehabilitation hospital, psychiatric hospital and international. The highest-ranking hospital in each category receives the award.

Memorial Hermann has once again been named one of the city’s Best Places to Work in the Houston Business Journal’s annual workplace survey for the 13th consecutive year, placing No. 4 among Houston’s largest employers. The Best Places to Work program honors remarkable organizations in the Greater Houston area. Winners are determined by employee responses to an online survey with questions focused on categories designed to measure employee engagement and other workplace factors. Quantum Workplace, Inc., an independent firm, conducted the survey and tabulated the results.

Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital, Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center all have received Chest Pain Center accreditation from The Joint Commission (TJC). An independent, not-for-profit organization, TJC accredits and certifies nearly 21,000 healthcare organizations and programs in the United States. Healthcare organizations that have received this accreditation have demonstrated a high level of expertise in dealing with patients with heart attack symptoms.

Eight Memorial Hermann hospitals received elite recognition from the American Heart Association (AHA)/American Stroke Association (ASA) for their commitment to provide high-quality stroke care. Each of the hospitals received an AHA/ASA Get With The Guidelines® award recognizing their dedication to providing the most appropriate treatment for stroke patients according to nationally recognized guidelines based on the latest scientific evidence.

Four of the Memorial Hermann hospitals recognized by AHA/ASA received the highest honor bestowed by the organizations, the Get With The Guidelines®-Stroke Gold Plus-Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite Plus award, which recognizes their adherence to all seven of the stroke achievement measures established by the AHA/ASA for two or more consecutive years. These quality measures are designed to help expedite recovery and lessen the risk for death and disability for stroke patients. The hospitals recognized with this award include Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

In addition, AHA/ASA recognized four other hospitals for high quality stroke performance, including Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital and Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital, which both received the Gold Plus-Target: Stroke Honor Roll Elite; Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center, which received the Gold Plus-Target: Stroke Honor Roll; and Memorial Hermann Pearland Hospital, which received the Silver Plus.

For the seventh time, Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center has been named one of the nation’s top 100 hospitals by IBM Watson Health. Formerly known as the Truven Health Analytics 100 Top Hospitals, the study spotlights the best-performing hospitals based on a scorecard of publicly available clinical, operational and patient satisfaction metrics and data.

The Joint Commission recognized Memorial Hermann Health System as a 2017 Pioneers in Quality™ Expert Contributor for the System’s contributions to adopting electronic clinical quality measures (eCQM) toward quality improvement. Of more than 3,200 Joint Commission-accredited hospitals that reported 2016 data, only 480 have been named 2017 Pioneers in Quality™ hospitals. It recognizes eCQM data reporting and other contributions that advance eCQM adoption in health care.

Memorial Hermann’s efforts to establish a high-reliability culture have attracted national attention, earning the System a 2017 HIMSS Enterprise Davies Award for its exemplary use of health information technology (IT) systems to make patient care safer. The System was one of only 19 health systems in the nation to achieve the coveted award.

The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) has recognized Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital, and Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Medical Center as four of 66 ACS NSQIP participating hospitals that have achieved meritorious outcomes for surgical patient care. As a participant in ACS NSQIP, the hospitals are required to track the outcomes of inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures and collect data that directs patient safety and the quality of surgical care improvements.

Four Memorial Hermann hospitals have been collectively named among the nation’s 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals in an annual national study conducted by Truven Health Analytics.™ Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital and Memorial Hermann The Woodlands Hospital, have been named among the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® five times and the 50 top Cardiovascular Hospitals seven times.

The Truven study, now in its 17th year, singled out 50 hospitals that achieved superior clinical outcomes in this critical area of hospital care. Like the Truven Health 100 Top Hospitals® study, the 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals survey uses rigorous processes to calculate and measure hospital service lines leverage industry-leading, risk-adjusted methodologies developed and maintained by Truven Health scientists over many years. The Truven Health 50 Top Cardiovascular Hospitals study measures eight key performance areas: risk-adjusted mortality, risk-adjusted complications, core measures (a group of measures that assess process of care), percentage of coronary bypass patients with internal mammary artery use, 30-day mortality rates, 30-day readmission rates, severity-adjusted average length of stay, and wage- and severity-adjusted average cost. The study has been conducted annually since 1999.

We know you have choices when it comes to cancer treatment. As leading providers of cancer treatment in Houston, Memorial Hermann Cancer Centers are committed to cancer treatment, prevention, and research. Our broad geographical coverage makes cancer treatment extremely accessible and convenient to where patients live or work. All eight Memorial Hermann Cancer Centers are approved by the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (ACoS CoC). Only 25 percent of hospitals across the country have received this special recognition. This approval means our Centers meet national standards that have been established to ensure cancer patients receive the best care. Commission approval is given only after a thorough on-site evaluation process and performance review. To maintain approval, our Centers undergo an on-site review every three years.

The Breast Care Center at Memorial Hermann Greater Heights is accredited by the American College of Surgeons’ National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers (NAPBC). NAPBC accreditation is granted only to those centers that have voluntarily committed to provide the best in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment and is able to comply with established NAPBC standards. Each center must undergo a rigorous evaluation and review of its performance and compliance with the NAPBC standards. To maintain accreditation, centers must undergo an on-site review every three (3) years.

Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital has been named a recipient of the 2016 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest Presidential honor for performance excellence. U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker made the announcement today recognizing Memorial Hermann Sugar Land for its outstanding commitment to sustainable excellence through innovation, improvement and visionary leadership. Since the healthcare category was introduced in 1999, only 21 healthcare organizations nationwide have been awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Memorial Hermann Sugar Land becomes the first Houston area hospital and the third in Texas to win the prestigious award. Nationally, more than 1,600 applications have been submitted since the program was established in 1987. To date, just 113 awards have been given in six sectors, education, healthcare, manufacturing, non-profit, service and small business.

In 2015, PaRC was presented the James W. West, MD Quality Improvement Award in recognition of its Pain Recovery Program by National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP). It was PaRC’s second time receiving the prestigious recognition, also doing so in 2011 for its Performance Improvement Program. The award recognizes PaRC's body of work involving performance improvement and relating to four specific quality initiatives undertaken by staff.

The Heart Institute at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital has earned the Society of Thoracic Surgeons’ (STS) highest rating for quality related to patient care and congenital heart surgery outcomes. Only 12 pediatric heart programs in the United States and Canada earned the distinguished STS three-star rating for congenital heart surgery, following analysis of data collected from 119 participating programs from January 2014 to December 2017. The STS star rating system is one of the most highly regarded overall measures of quality in health care, comparing the nationally benchmarked outcomes of cardiothoracic surgery programs in the U.S. and Canada.

The Quality Texas Foundation has awarded three hospitals the Texas Award for Performance Excellence (TAPE) in recognition of their strong commitment to quality and high performance. Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Hospital received the distinction in 2015, Memorial Hermann Katy Hospital was recognized in 2017 and Memorial Hermann Memorial City Medical Center earned the award in 2018. The Quality Texas Foundation was chartered to recognize the best organizations in Texas. The group uses an extensive evaluation process that includes hundreds of hours of onsite visits to evaluate and score applicants in several criteria.

Three Memorial Hermann Health System hospitals as well as Memorial Hermann Life Flight^® were recently honored at the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council (SETRAC) Awards Banquet 2016.

Memorial Hermann received awards in four of the top categories, including:

• Cardiac Award (hospital less than 250 beds): Memorial Hermann Greater Heights Hospital
• Cardiac Award (hospital with more than 250 beds): Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital
• Pediatric System of Care Award: Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital
• EMS/Air Medical Partner of the Year Award: Memorial Hermann Life Flight

In 2014, Memorial Hermann Life Flight was honored as Air Medical Service of the Year by the Texas Department of State Health Services for demonstrating the highest standards in patient care and leading the way in innovation and commitment to patient care. This marked the third time Life Flight achieved the recognition, winning previously in 2001 and 2004.