UAB’s campus in downtown Birmingham. (Nathan Watson / Bham Now)

Can we get a round of applause for UAB Hospital? Once again, UAB Hospital has secured a place as Alabama’s top-ranked hospital on Newsweek’s prestigious list of the World’s Best Hospitals 2026.

UAB Hospital is Alabama’s top-ranked hospital

UAB celebrates opening of Altec/Styslinger Genomic Medicine and — The new UAB Altec Styslinger Genomic Medicine and Data Sciences building on UAB’s campus. (Nathan Watson / Bham Now)

Out of the nearly 400 hospitals evaluated this year by Newsweek and Statista Inc. (a leading global data and business intelligence platform), UAB Hospital was ranked best in Alabama and No. 59 in the U.S. on Newsweek’s prestigious list of the World’s Best Hospitals 2026.

Click here to view World’s Best Hospital 2026 for the full rankings.

This year, Newsweek and Statista Inc. used four key data sources to determine rankings:

Hospital quality metrics
Recommendations from medical experts (doctors, hospital managers and other healthcare professionals)
Results from patient surveys
Findings from the Statista PROMs Implementation Survey

In addition, UAB was also awarded as a leader in patient experience.

“UAB’s continued recognition as one of the nation’s top health care destinations reflects the outstanding work our faculty and staff deliver every day. This honor, grounded in rigorous hospital quality metrics, the expertise of medical professionals and the voices of our patients, underscores the strength of our care. Combined with our leading research and innovative therapies, these results reaffirm UAB as the destination of choice in Alabama, across the Southeast and beyond.”
Dawn Bulgarella, CEO of UAB Health System

According to a press release, the UAB Health System is the largest health system in the state, with more than 30,000 physicians, health care professionals and staff serving almost 1.4 million unique patients each year. A nearly $7.5 billion enterprise, UAB Health System has 113 locations serving all 67 counties in Alabama, with hospitals like:

UAB Hospital
UAB St. Vincent’s
UAB Medical West
Baptist Health in Montgomery
UAB Hospital-Callahan Eye
Russel Medical Center
Whitfield Regional Hospital
John Paul Jones Hospital

UAB Health System is no stranger to national recognition. In 2025, UAB Hospital was named the No. 1 hospital in both Alabama and the Birmingham metro area in the 2025-2026 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals ranking—for the 12th consecutive year!

Follow Bham Now on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn and sign up for our FREE newsletter to have exciting news about The Magic City delivered straight to your inbox!