UM St. Joseph Medical Center Named Among Nation's Best for Patient Experience
University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center (UM St. Joseph), a member organization of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), has been recognized for the second year in a row as a 2025 Outstanding Patient Experience Award recipient by Healthgrades, the #1 site Americans use when searching for a doctor or a hospital. This achievement reflects the hospital’s commitment to compassionate, patient-centered care and puts the organization in the top tier of hospitals nationwide for patient experience. UM St. Joseph was one of only three hospitals in Maryland to be so honored in 2025.
“With every patient interaction, we rededicate ourselves to zero patient harm and a culture of caring,” said Thomas B. Smyth, MD, President and CEO of UM St. Joseph Medical Center. “We are committed to providing medical treatment and care experiences that are reliably safe and effective, delivered in loving service and with heartfelt compassion.”
About the Healthgrades Outstanding Patient Experience Award
Each year, Healthgrades recognizes the top hospitals nationwide that provide an exceptional experience for their patients during their hospital stay. As part of its annual analysis, Healthgrades evaluated more than 3,000 hospitals that submitted at least 100 Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys, covering admissions from January 2023 to December 2023.
To determine the recipients of the Outstanding Patient Experience Award, Healthgrades applies a scoring methodology to ten patient experience measures. These measures focus on patients’ perceptions of their hospital care, including staff communication, medication explanations, and cleanliness. UM St. Joseph’s Outstanding Patient Experience Award is the direct result of positive patient feedback in these critical areas.
"We commend University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center for going above and beyond to ensure patients have the best possible experience during their hospital stay and recovery process,” said Debra Gradick, MD, FACEP, senior physician consultant at Healthgrades. “Better patient experiences lead to better health outcomes, which is why it’s so important for patients to choose a hospital that excels at providing high quality, compassionate care.”
Consumers can visit healthgrades.com to learn more about how Healthgrades measures hospital quality and access the Outstanding Patient Experience Award Methodology. A patient-friendly overview of Healthgrades’ complete methodology is also available here.
About University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center
Founded in 1864 by the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, UM St. Joseph Medical Center is a 221-bed Catholic, not-for-profit regional medical center in Towson, Maryland, that offers a wide range of superb clinical programs and centers of excellence, including the Cancer, Heart and Orthopaedic Institutes, Women and Children’s services and Emergency Medicine. The medical center’s committed focus on zero patient harm, clinical excellence and perfect patient experiences spurred the creation of the hospital’s unique approach to care, The UM St. Joseph Value Delivery System, and has consistently earned UM St. Joseph regional and national recognition for patient care and safety, including its ranking as the #1 community hospital in Maryland by U.S. News & World Report. UM St. Joseph is a member of the 11-hospital University of Maryland Medical System, dedicated to providing loving service and compassionate, leading-edge care to all.
About the University of Maryland Medical System
The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high-quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore, who educate the state’s future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit umms.org.
About Healthgrades
Healthgrades is dedicated to empowering meaningful connections between patients, doctors, and hospitals. As the #1 platform for finding a doctor and a leader in healthcare transparency, we help millions of consumers each month find and schedule appointments with their healthcare professional of choice and prepare for their appointments with best-in-class, treatment-focused content. Healthgrades is part of RVO Health, which helps more than 100 million unique visitors live their strongest and healthiest lives each month.