Los Angeles is the primary health care and treatment center for the southern California region. It is the second largest health care market in the country and is at the forefront of major changes taking place in the health care industry. In recent years, many community hospitals have closed and overcapacity threatens more closures. In the vast metro Los Angeles area, there are 822 hospitals and clinics. It has been estimated that nearly a third of the hospitals would soon close and others would consolidate so that California's health care industry will eventually be dominated by four or five huge hospital networks, but lawsuits and other problems have led the state's hospital system into uncertainty and turmoil.
With more than 600 beds, UCLA Medical Center is known worldwide as a health care innovator. Its highly experienced staff consists of more than 1,000 physicians and 3,500 nurses, therapists, technologists, and support personnel. Offering comprehensive care from the routine to the highly specialized, its physicians are some of the best in the country. Other factors contributing to the Center's top rankings include specialized intensive care units, state-of-the-art in-patient and outpatient operating suites, a Level-1 trauma center, and the latest diagnostic technology. UCLA Medical Center includes UCLA Children's Hospital; the Jules Stein Eye Institute; the Doris Stein Eye Research Center; UCLA's Jonsson Cancer Center, officially designated by the National Cancer Institute as one of the most comprehensive cancer centers in the country; and a network of health care facilities that brings UCLA-quality care to a growing number of California communities.