The measure of a great hospital goes beyond the latest technology and cutting-edge research. At Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center, the renowned cancer experts and robust cardiology department shine. But the commitment to serving the most vulnerable patients in their backyard is the greatest source of pride for leadership and frontline workers alike.
Virginia Mason Medical Center has been serving the community for over 100 years, with multiple locations throughout the Seattle area, serving more than 2.1 million residents in King County, according to its 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment. As the population continues to grow and become more diverse, so do the health and wealth disparities, especially along racial lines. Homelessness is also an ongoing crisis in the area, with one in five King County residents living in or near poverty.
Caring for a large and diverse population can be a challenge, but the staff at Virginia Mason considers the individual needs of each patient.
“We are very aware of our inequality mission and those who are vulnerable and our nurses and all of our team members really ensure that our patients are at the top,” Joy Selchow, nurse director of critical care and progressive care units, told Newsweek. “We see them for who they are and care for them for and what they need.”
Virginia Mason’s work was recently recognized on Newsweek’s World’s Best Hospitals 2025 ranking, which highlights more than 2,400 of the best hospitals in 30 countries worldwide. The Seattle organization broke into the top 200 hospitals globally, jumping from No. 240 in 2024 to 189 in 2025.
This ranking, which was built in coordination with Statista, considers various hospital quality metrics, patient satisfaction scores, peer recommendations and accreditations to compare health systems nationally and internationally.
Virginia Mason Medical Center maintains consistently high scores in both quality metrics and patient satisfaction, according to Statista. The increased weighting of hospital quality metrics on this year’s ranking helped boost Virginia Mason’s placement on the list. Improvements in national and international recommendations also contributed to the hospital’s climb.
Over the past few years, Virginia Mason has undergone some changes, most notably, a 2021 merger with Catholic Health Initiative Franciscan to form Virginia Mason Franciscan Health under the parent company CommonSpirit Health. The nonprofit, faith-based health system includes 10 hospitals and 300 care sites across the Pacific Northwest.
Dr. Andrew Ross, the chief clinical officer at Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC), told Newsweek that this merger took VMMC from a 250-bed hospital in downtown Seattle to an integral part of the regional health system.
Ross said VMMC is “pushing the envelope in terms of what we consider tertiary and quaternary care” that can’t be delivered in other parts of the health system. This includes specialized care that is “lower volume and higher risk” targeted at the region’s sickest patients, such as complex spine care, complex digestive health disorders, complex cardiac care, kidney transplantation and oncology.
The hospital’s extensive breadth of experience caring for patients provides opportunities for clinical research. Patients experiencing complex medical conditions can participate in clinical trials that can save their lives and advance the field of medicine along the way.
The Benaroya Research Institute on Virginia Mason’s campus treats autoimmune disorders, like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. This partnership with the research institution creates a pathway between clinical space and laboratories, Ross said.
“The types of clinicians who are attracted here want to put patients first, want to take care of patients but they want to learn something along the way,” he said.
Multidisciplinary care is a buzzword in health care today, Ross said. But team medicine and patient-centered care have been core values at Virginia Mason since its inception and underscores everything the staff does. With these focuses on critical care, Ross said recruitment at Virginia Mason starts with excellence.
“That [value system] started with our founders and that culture has been propagated by every single leader who has come after,” he said. “We intentionally recruit people who want to engage in that type of work.”
According to its mission statement, CommonSpirit Health makes “the healing presence of God known” by improving the health of the people it serves, “especially those who are vulnerable, while we advance social justice for all.” The hospital is driven by providing a healthier future for all through faith, innovation and humanity.
Selchow joined Virginia Mason 14 years ago after working as a traveling nurse. She’s worked in various roles and has been the nursing director for about a year. Selchow said the large team approach to care at Virginia Mason is unlike anything she’s seen at previous hospitals where she’s worked.
“Every team member does have a voice and is encouraged to speak up when they see something wrong or just even to give kudos and call out those positive aspects,” she said. “You feel a camaraderie with the doctors and the staff and the transporters—it doesn’t matter your role, you feel like you have someone to go to.”
Part of the hospital’s best practices is reminding new hires that they don’t work for Virginia Mason—they work for the patients. That patient-centered care is a distinct differentiator at the hospital, Ross said, as patients are “the single largest stakeholder in all of health care.”
“Nobody wakes up and says, ‘I really want to go to the doctor today’,” he said. “So our people have to engage with care. We want to make it safe, we want to make it high quality and we want to make the experience really good for them.”
Virginia Mason was one of five hospitals across the VMFH system to be recognized with an “A” grade in patient safety by Leapfrog Group in 2024. This was the 22nd consecutive A grade for VMMC; it stands as the only hospital in Washington State to earn straight A ratings since the Hospital Safety Grade program began in 2012.
Having the foundation of collaboration and understanding with patients, physicians and nurses from multiple departments allows Virginia Mason to adapt and improve with ease.
“We process improvements and gather all the information we need to ensure that everybody’s involved—from our patient to our team members, to anyone else in the community that needs to be involved—to ensure that we are making the right improvements to the culture for vulnerable and non-vulnerable populations,” Selchow said.
A recent improvement required a change in the communication from leadership to patients. Staff at Virginia Mason ask patients if they’ve met with anyone in leadership—from nurse managers to chief clinical officers. Ross said leaders need to be present and visible on the floors interacting with clinicians and patients so they can understand the reality of care on the frontline and listen to direct feedback.
“If you don’t believe that health care is a hospitality industry, I think you’re mistaken,” Ross said. “We’ve always got to hear what we can do better. And it’s really important for patients to be able to interact with the people who are making the decisions at the highest levels.”
Making care at Virginia Mason Franciscan more accessible throughout the Seattle-Tacoma area is a top priority, according to Virginia Mason Medical Center’s 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment.
The hospital will continue supporting programs to help the unhoused, uninsured and underinsured obtain quality, affordable care. This includes increasing education and access to maternal child health programs. The hospital awarded $1.7 million in Community Health Improvement Grants to organizations across the region to help address access to care, behavioral health, chronic disease and violence prevention.
Recent outreach includes the health system’s support of local food banks to reduce food insecurity and owning and operating the Bailey-Boushay House, which continues to provide food, shelter and care for people dealing with HIV/AIDS, mental health issues and homelessness. The hospital also supported the NHL‘s Hockey Fights Cancer initiative by hosting prostate cancer screenings at the Seattle Kraken stadium.
“If health systems do the work right, they are able to have a lot of front doors,” Ross said. “Most people don’t access health care through a hospital, they access it through a doctor’s office or their nurse practitioner or PA’s office. So we need to have a lot of front doors into which patients can access us.”
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