Newswise — JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For the third consecutive year, Mayo Clinic has been named the best hospital in Florida and the Jacksonville metro area in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Hospitals rankings published on Tuesday, Aug. 14, on the U.S. News & World Report website.

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“We are humbled and honored by our ranking with U.S. News & World Report,” says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., vice president, Mayo Clinic, and CEO of Mayo Clinic in Florida. Dr. Farrugia also is Mayo Clinic’s president and CEO-elect. “We have continuously refined our system of care for more than 150 years. We are always working to deliver accurate answers as quickly as possible and ensure the best outcomes for our patients.” 

Mayo Clinic in Florida has significantly invested in people, space and technology over the past few years. During this time, Mayo has nearly doubled its space and added more than 1,000 new staff members, including 130 new physicians and scientists. Mayo has attracted to the Florida campus some of the top leaders in their fields from around the world. As part of this historic growth, Mayo Clinic is engaged in a $350 million investment that will provide more than 400,000 square feet of new space for patient care, biomedical research, education and technology.

Highlights of growth at Mayo Clinic in Florida include:

  • Dorothy J. and Harry T. Mangurian Jr. Building This building opened on Aug. 6 and provides integrated services for complex cancer, neurologic and neurosurgical care. The building also is home to discovery, patient-centered research and clinical trials. Mayo Clinic in Florida has one of the largest neuro-oncology clinical and research groups in the country funded by the National Institutes of Health.
  • Positron emission tomography (PET) radiochemistry facility This facility houses a radiochemistry laboratory and a cyclotron – a particle accelerator important in the production of radiopharmaceuticals. The facility, which was completed this year, will produce Mayo-developed Choline C-11 used in certain PET scans. The scans are the latest advancements in imaging tests that light up prostate cancer wherever it is found and provide targets for therapy. Locating recurrent prostate cancer sooner may enable Mayo health care providers to target the cancer more quickly, before it spreads further. The cyclotron also will produce other radiopharmaceuticals to image various organs and develop the next generation of imaging techniques.
  • Mayo South Building This building, which is under construction and slated to open in 2019, will provide space for a new molecular imaging center, and for cardiovascular and cardiothoracic surgery programs. It also will provide space to expand the spine center and pain rehabilitation program. In this building, Mayo experts will combine new imaging technologies with emerging fields, such as nanomedicine to noninvasively diagnose, monitor and treat disease at a cellular level.
  • Collaboration between Mayo Clinic and United Therapeutics Corporation This collaboration includes the construction of a building that will house technology that will increase the volume of lungs for transplantation by preserving selected marginal donor lungs and making them viable for transplantation. The lungs will be made available to patients at Mayo Clinic and other transplant centers across the U.S. The organizations also will work together on regenerative medicine research – an area of medicine with the potential to heal damaged tissues and organs. The building also will house a biotechnology center to attract new companies to Northeast Florida. Construction on the three-story, 75,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed in 2019.

Mayo Clinic in Florida provides diagnosis, medical treatment, surgery and care for more than 119,000 patients each year in 40 specialty areas. Mayo has more than 6,400 staff members in Florida and contributes $2 billion to the Florida economy.

In addition to the Florida ranking, Mayo Clinic’s Rochester, Minnesota, campus earned the No. 1 overall spot nationally on U.S. News & World Report's Honor Roll of America's Best Hospitals. Mayo Clinic also took the No. 1 spots in Arizona and Minnesota.

Mayo Clinic’s commitment to quality and collaboration dates back more than 150 years when the Mayo brothers invented the team-based approach to medicine – an approach that is continuously refined over time. Then and now, Mayo Clinic’s world-class experts work closely across specialties to provide comprehensive and coordinated care for patients with the most serious and complex conditions.

“Our top ranking is only possible because of our talented staff,” Dr. Farrugia says. “Mayo Clinic’s emphasis on collaboration and teamwork allows us to bring the full spectrum of our knowledge and expertise together to focus on the individual needs of each patient.”

This is the 29th year that U.S. News & World Report conducted the Best Hospitals rankings, which encompasses 16 medical specialties. U.S. News & World Report analyzes data for 5,000 medical centers to determine the rankings.

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Media contact Kevin Punsky, Mayo Clinic Public Affairs, 904-953-0746, [email protected]