A hospital that trains resident physicians, usually affiliated with a medical school.
Why this matters to you
Teaching hospitals tend to handle the most complex cases and offer treatments community hospitals cannot, which is why they matter for rare conditions and complicated surgery. The trade-off is that you may be seen by residents under supervision, and large academic centres often score lower on patient experience measures like quietness at night.
Official source
The authoritative definition and current rules are published here:
Rules and figures change. Where this page and the official source disagree, the official source is correct — and we would like to know, so please tell us.
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Quality measures come from CMS public datasets, released August 13, 2026, and reflect
care delivered during earlier reporting periods, so they may not describe a
hospital as it operates today.
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